Synopses & Reviews
Told from the alternating perspectives of children's book author Osamu Nonoguchi and Detective Kyoichiro Kaga,
Malice is a why-dunnit with an unexpected twist.
Bestselling author Kunihiko Hidaka has been murdered; his body discovered by wife Rie and childhood friend/fellow author Osamu Nonoguchi. Nonoguchi is in fact the cops' prime suspect, but when he confesses, he provides peculiarly elaborate motives that make the victim out to be the culprit. But why is this author's idea of a perfect crime, to be implicated, and not to get away scott free? Despite having put the real killer behind bars, chief detective Kaga continues to investigate.
Though written several years before any of the current memoir and plagiarism scandals surfaced here in the U.S., the murder at the center of this mystery novel plays on our predisposed empathy for the killer because his victim supposedly plagiarized his novels and embellished his memoir.
About the Author
Konami Kanata (pen name used by Kanata Konami) was born on July 3, 1958, in Nagano, Japan. A veteran manga artist Konami made her professional debut in 1982 with the serialized comic Petit Cat Jam-Jam for Kodansha's semenal shoujo manga magazine NakaYoshi. The daughter of an elementary school teacher, most of Konami's stories are for readers of all ages making her one of the most accessible artists in recent history.
In her nearly thirty year career, Konami has penned more than a dozen comic series, with the majority of them focusing on cats and pets. Konami is well regarded within the pet-manga community for her keen sense of cat ecology. Her ability to observe and render feline behavior has earned her respect from the Japanese manga community as a whole. While most of her properties were published for a younger female demographic, her most recent series Chi's Sweet Home is currently being published by Kodansha's Morning magazine, Japan's leading comic magazine for adult readers. Proving that quality can be found even in the cutest of sources.
Chi's Sweet Home will be Konami's first translated work.