A battle of wits, January 2, 2011
This is a very clever mystery novel originally written in Japanese and translated into English and is this author's first major English publication. Apparently this novel is a continuation of a popular serial drama, Galileo, and has also been made into a Japanese film, Suspect-X that was released in 2008. The recurring character in the series is Manabu Yukawa, a brilliant physics professor at Imperial University who is respectfully called Detective Galileo. He assists the local police sometimes with particularly vexsome cases, and this murder is one of those.

Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced mother working in a box lunch shop. She left her old life as a hostess behind and is trying to live a quiet existence while raising her teenage daughter, Misato. Unfortunately for her, she has a deadbeat ex-husband who is looking for her and who wants to get back together and who wants money. When he comes to extort her and threatens to harm her daughter at her apartment on that fateful evening, she and her daughter murder Shinji Togashi. Overhearing the scuffle, next door neighbor -- a mathematics teacher named Tetsuya Ishigami -- comes to her door and offers Yasuko total salvation. He tells her that he will take care of everything and will help them avoid prosecution and imprisonment if only they do exactly as he says.

Although the lead detectives on the case suspect that the alibis of Yasuko and her Misato aren't quite ironclad, police are confused about whether or not they are truly suspects in the murder. With fantastic misdirection and precise circumlocution directed behind the scenes by Ishigami, the pair are continuing their daily lives as if innocent. Meanwhile the intrepid and faithful Ishigami is still pulling the strings of the investigation. Detective Kusanagi, certain that something fishy is going on, consults his friend Yukawa. It so happens that Yukawa knows Ishigami from their shared history at Imperial University where they both attended -- Yukawa majoring in physics and Ishigami in mathematics. What follows after Yukawa gets involved is a true battle of wits between the two former classmates.

I enjoyed the way the investigation unfolded and the interaction between the characters. The novel is complex and is definitely a thinking person's read. Scattered throughout are complex philosophical questions and mathematical proofs. The highly intelligent Yukawa and Ishigami provide point and counterpoint as the multilayered elements of the crime are slowly revealed. The conclusion, however, is painful. I closed the book with a profound sense of grief.

Recommend to discriminating readers. Don't be put off by this perhaps being an unfamiliar author, or by the fact that it is a translation from Japanese.

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I was gifted with an advanced copy of The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino. This is Higashinos first major English production and it is GREAT. It is easy to see why he is a hit in Japan. The book is simply written, which belies a complicated plot. The writing style is calm, easy to follow; making it a relatively fast read. I would caution other readers that some knowledge of Japanese culture helps make this more fun to read than it might otherwise be to Americans. I found myself smiling when these obviously Asian people used American slang/colloquialisms. These touches, though, make it easy for any Western reader to follow the story. As long as you can google pictures of a kotatsu table; you shouldnt find anything else mysterious about the story.
The story revolves around an act of (more or less) self-defense that evolved into murder and the subsequent plot to cover it up. We meet Ishigami, a brilliant math teacher, whose exceptional intelligence means his every thought is on a higher plane than most others. There is Yasuko and her daughter, a beautiful divorcee who is the object of Ishigamis unrequited affections. Ishigami has no hope to attain the love of Yasuko; therefore he does not waste the energy pursuing her, but instead is content to love her from afar. When Yasuko finds herself in need of help, Ishigami quietly places himself between her and the police. Ishigami is the mastermind of a complicated cover-up that does not fully unfold for the reader until the last chapter of the book. The plot twist at the end is worthy (in the opinion of this reader) of a Law and Order style BUMP-BUMP.
All the while, an old classmate of Ishigamis (an equally brilliant physicist named Yukawa) is assisting his police detective friend in the investigation. Truly, if Yukawa had not been involved, Ishigamis plan would have succeeded. In the end, everyone involved Ishigami, Yasuko, and Yakawa must decide time and time again what to reveal to the police. Ishigami set a stage and pulled the strings. Yakawa must decide if he will reveal his old friend as the puppet master or let a murderer go free.

I consider myself reasonably intelligent, but I never fully anticipated the true nature of the cover up. It knocks the breath from you as it does Yasuko when she learns of it.
I highly recommend The Devotion of Suspect X to everyone a great mystery read!

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I'd read a blurb about this book months ago, added it to my wish list, and was very happy when I won an Advanced Reader's Copy for review. I expected to be wowed by this winner of the Japanese Naoki prize which is similar to the National Book Award.

What I got instead, was a slow, boring and unimaginative read. I had to really push myself to finish it because nothing about the book engaged me - not the story, the characters, and especially not the writing. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

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