For readers tripping on Stieg Larsson with his outcast heroine,sordid crimes and heinous punishments,Keigo Higashinos The Devotion of Suspect X (Hachette,Rs 499) will seem like a walk in a foreign city. This thriller will remind you of Agatha Christie rather than the girl with the dragon tattoo. Revelations lurk around every corner,a veneer of civilisation remains intact and sheer ghastliness holds no sway. The murder happens before you have reached page 30. Till the penultimate pages,the mastermind plots two steps ahead of the detective. And as Hercule Poirot taught us,the devil lies in the details. This book is more of a why he dun it than a who dun it. It takes the reader into the characters minds and reveals the Tokyo that lives in small apartments. It is a battle of wits between maths teacher Ishigami and physics professor-turned-sleuth Yukawa. It becomes a contest between the theories of maths and the practice of physics: Ishihgami built his theorems with the rigid blocks of mathematical formulas while Yukawa began everything by making observations. Ishigami preferred simulations; Yukawas heart was in actual experimentation. At the centre of the action lies the dark-eyed Yasuko,a single mother,struggling to make ends meet and provide for her young,feisty daughter Misato. Published in Japanese in 2005,the book went on to become one of the biggest sellers ever in Japan. The English translation reads effortlessly. The precise prose allows the story to tell itself without raising the pitch to create artificial suspense or drama. The emotional outburst pours on to the page only at the very end,where feelings reach the pitch of a Shakespearean tragedy. Do you remember Danielle Steel? Yes,at 64,she is still writing. After nearly 90 novels in her three-decade-long career comes Happy Birthday (Random House Rs 550). This breezy,almost-forgettable read will remind you of the times you snuck one of her pocket-sized books under your quilt and read it in torchlight. You will also wonder why these books had an aura of the adult,when nothing obviously prohibitive lurks in its pages. Happy Birthday,as the name suggests,opens on November 1,a birth date shared by three New Yorkers. Valerie Wyatt hyper-successful TV personality,and competitor of Martha Stewart,who tells the world she is 51 hits 60. Her daughter April Wyatt,running her popular restaurant,April in New York,turns 30. And Jack Adams is a sports personality who turns 50: Such an ugly number. With birthdays providing the default opportunity to tally achieved signposts and chastising milestones,these three characters must reckon with their lives. These are,of course,landmark birthdays,which as April realises,made you measure yourself against everyone elses yardstick. And all three arrive at the conclusion that their lives are successful but incomplete. What is missing is love,no surprises there. To find love in a Daniel Steel novel,you need beautiful people and a possibly tragic event. Steel throws in a terrorist attack by a Palestinian extremist group,for good measure. The hostage situation leaves you unmoved but through it all you know it is just a device for April and Valerie to find the love of their lives. Valerie with her strings of pearls,obsession with youth and Botox,gets tiresome rather quickly. April,with her messy ponytail,soiled apron and steadfast will,makes a far more interesting character. Journalist Mike,the father of her child and a man of noble journalist ethics who doesnt do holidays and didnt initially believe in child-rearing,provides just the appropriately broad shoulder for April to lean on. Jack Adams,who herniates a disc after an acrobatic relationship with a Cat Woman on Halloween,must realise that companionship and happiness can be found with a 60-year-old,not a 20-something model. While the birthday is dreadful for all three characters,the rest of the year is hardly so. Now if only life was like that.
