Synopses & Reviews
Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter Misato, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor. Overhearing the commotion, Yasukos next door neighbor, middle-aged high school mathematics teacher Ishigami, offers his help, disposing not only of the body but plotting the cover-up step-by-step.
When the body turns up and is identified, Detective Kusanagi draws the case and Yasuko comes under suspicion. Kusanagi is unable to find any obvious holes in Yasukos manufactured alibi and yet is still sure that theres something wrong. Kusanagi brings in Dr. Manabu Yukawa, a physicist and college friend who frequently consults with the police. Yukawa, known to the police by the nickname Professor Galileo, went to college with Ishigami. After meeting up with him again, Yukawa is convinced that Ishigami had something to do with the murder. What ensues is a high level battle of wits, as Ishigami tries to protect Yasuko by outmaneuvering and outthinking Yukawa, who faces his most clever and determined opponent yet.
Review
"…The best mystery novel I read [last year] was a standalone translation of a Japanese novel, The Devotion of Suspect X… a puzzle mystery that manages never to become a "cozy…" Ishigami, a mathematical genius who, through the vicissitudes of academic life has become a mere high school teacher, has fallen in love with the divorced mother-of-one who lives next door, and when she commits a killing in self-defense, he takes over the crime scene and arranges a brilliant deception that completely fools the police… [The Devotion of Suspect X] is smart at every level. Each revelation is smarter than the illusion it tears aside. And the conclusion, which depends on understanding of human character rather than logic or science, is both satisfying and frustrating. Satisfying, because it is utterly just and true to character; frustrating, because quite against our own moral sense we find ourselves rooting for the bad guy - because we understand him so well he doesn't seem all that bad." -Orson Scott Card “Higashino won Japans Naoki Prize for Best Novel with this stunning thriller about miscarried human devotion, a bestseller in Japan. The author successfully combines unquestionable reasoning with unquenchable pain. In this brutally laconic translation, cold logic battles warm hearts throughout this elegant proof of the wages of sin, in which everyone suffers and no one can ever win.” --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Winner of Japans prestigious Naoki Prize and a bestseller there with more than two million copies sold, this literary psychological thriller is a subtle and shifting murder mystery. It will make readers redefine devotion and trust in an otherwise complete stranger.” --Library Journal (starred review) “Veteran police detective matches wits with a brilliant rookie criminal. This character-driven mystery by the prolific Higashino has much to recommend, including a droll Columbo-like sleuth and a great surprise ending.” --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "In The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino weaves a web of intellectual gamesmanship in which the truth is a weapon that leads both police and readers astray. The ingenius conclusion is so unexpected that it's difficult to imagine anyone seeing it coming. Smart, smart characters." --Jaqueline Winspear "How could we have ever imagined, without the help of a novel like this, that Japanese life could be so fraught with suffering and so entertaining all at once?” --Alan Cheuse, Dallas Morning News on HIMITSU (The Secret), published as NAOKO in the U.S. “Higashino is a deft conjurer of human relationships, and while this is first and foremost a tale of grief— —he infuses it with spasms of sharp humor.” --East Bay Express on Himitsu (The Secret)
“The Devotion of Suspect X has all the brilliant intricacy of the best Golden Age mysteries - puzzle within puzzle, twist after twist - with a modern sensibility. It is a wonderful, fresh take on the classic mystery's intellectual struggle between protagonist and antagonist, adds to it all the right amounts of tension and pacing, places it in a fascinating setting, and gives of all of this plenty of heart." --Jan Burke, New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author of Kidnapped and Bones
"Japanese crime writers excel at many things: one is the slow tightening of the noose that's at the fast-pounding heart of the police procedural. The Devotion of Suspect X is a terrific book in that tradition and it's about time American readers got a crack at it." --SJ Rozan, Edgar Award winning author of Winter and Night and On the Line
“The Devotion of Suspect X is elegant and spare and gripping and vivid. Most of all, however, it is deeply moving, and this is what sets it apart!” --Jesse Kellerman, bestselling author of Trouble and The Executor
"Irresistible! A mind-twisting story that will have readers plunging in to try to solve the crime before the math genius, the physics professor, or the cop get there first." --Nancy Pickard, New York Times bestselling author of The Scent of Rain and Lightning and The Virgin of Small Plains
Review
Praise for the audio edition of The Devotion of Suspect X:
“Told with cool simplicity…Higashinos ‘just the facts, maam style belies his brilliant evocation of Ishigami as he enters into a cat-and-mouse battle of wits with a former acquaintance, a super-smart physics professor who is the only man able to fathom the depths of the mathematicians devotion. David Pittu is an amazingly skillful narrator, brushing the dialogue with an almost imperceptible hint of an accent, subtly building suspense as the inevitable end looms.” - BookPage, Top Pick of the Month
"David Pittus narration adds a humanity and passion to the proceedings, especially evident in the scenes in which Ishigami goes head to head with wily Dr. Yukawa. The formers calm manner of speaking seems to be concealing a feverishly working mind, while the doctor is evidently enjoying himself immensely. Pittu transforms those and other moments from mere wordplay into a thrilling game of cat and mouse in the Alfred Hitchcock tradition.” -- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“David Pittu narrates with a considered and almost-conversational style, allowing the main focus of the story, the investigation of the murder and the interaction between the protagonists, to gently unfold…a high-quality listen.” -- AudioFile
“What might be classified as a procedural develops considerable psychological depth, aided by Tony Award-winning actor David Pittus subtle, sensitive reading, through which he artfully manages to accentuate the characters conflicted emotions. Recommended for crime novel enthusiasts and those interested in Japanese culture.” - Library Journal, starred review
“This is a stylized genre novel which is distinctive for its Japanese setting, a glimpse into Japanese culture, and the two highly intellectual protagonists reflecting on the nature of problem-solving. Its a good story, and the performance of the unabridged audiobook by David Pittu is nicely done” - Metapsychology Online Reviews- - - “Higashino won Japans Naoki Prize for Best Novel with this stunning thriller about miscarried human devotion, a bestseller in Japan. The author successfully combines unquestionable reasoning with unquenchable pain. In this brutally laconic translation, cold logic battles warm hearts throughout this elegant proof of the wages of sin, in which everyone suffers and no one can ever win.” --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Winner of Japans prestigious Naoki Prize and a bestseller there with more than two million copies sold, this literary psychological thriller is a subtle and shifting murder mystery. It will make readers redefine devotion and trust in an otherwise complete stranger.” --Library Journal (starred review) “Veteran police detective matches wits with a brilliant rookie criminal. This character-driven mystery by the prolific Higashino has much to recommend, including a droll Columbo-like sleuth and a great surprise ending.” --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "In The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino weaves a web of intellectual gamesmanship in which the truth is a weapon that leads both police and readers astray. The ingenius conclusion is so unexpected that it's difficult to imagine anyone seeing it coming. Smart, smart characters." --Jaqueline Winspear "How could we have ever imagined, without the help of a novel like this, that Japanese life could be so fraught with suffering and so entertaining all at once?” --Alan Cheuse, Dallas Morning News on HIMITSU (The Secret), published as NAOKO in the U.S. “Higashino is a deft conjurer of human relationships, and while this is first and foremost a tale of grief— —he infuses it with spasms of sharp humor.” --East Bay Express on Himitsu (The Secret)
“The Devotion of Suspect X has all the brilliant intricacy of the best Golden Age mysteries - puzzle within puzzle, twist after twist - with a modern sensibility. It is a wonderful, fresh take on the classic mystery's intellectual struggle between protagonist and antagonist, adds to it all the right amounts of tension and pacing, places it in a fascinating setting, and gives of all of this plenty of heart." --Jan Burke, New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author of Kidnapped and Bones
"Japanese crime writers excel at many things: one is the slow tightening of the noose that's at the fast-pounding heart of the police procedural. The Devotion of Suspect X is a terrific book in that tradition and it's about time American readers got a crack at it." --SJ Rozan, Edgar Award winning author of Winter and Night and On the Line
“The Devotion of Suspect X is elegant and spare and gripping and vivid. Most of all, however, it is deeply moving, and this is what sets it apart!” --Jesse Kellerman, bestselling author of Trouble and The Executor
"Irresistible! A mind-twisting story that will have readers plunging in to try to solve the crime before the math genius, the physics professor, or the cop get there first." --Nancy Pickard, New York Times bestselling author of The Scent of Rain and Lightning and The Virgin of Small Plains
Review
“Higashino won Japans Naoki Prize for Best Novel with this stunning thriller about miscarried human devotion, a bestseller in Japan. The author successfully combines unquestionable reasoning with unquenchable pain. In this brutally laconic translation, cold logic battles warm hearts throughout this elegant proof of the wages of sin, in which everyone suffers and no one can ever win.” --
Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Winner of Japans prestigious Naoki Prize and a bestseller there with more than two million copies sold, this literary psychological thriller is a subtle and shifting murder mystery. It will make readers redefine devotion and trust in an otherwise complete stranger.” --
Library Journal (starred review) “Veteran police detective matches wits with a brilliant rookie criminal. This character-driven mystery by the prolific Higashino has much to recommend, including a droll Columbo-like sleuth and a great surprise ending.” --
Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "In
The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino weaves a web of intellectual gamesmanship in which the truth is a weapon that leads both police and readers astray. The ingenius conclusion is so unexpected that it's difficult to imagine anyone seeing it coming. Smart, smart characters." --Jaqueline Winspear "How could we have ever imagined, without the help of a novel like this, that Japanese life could be so fraught with suffering and so entertaining all at once?” --Alan Cheuse,
Dallas Morning News on
HIMITSU (
The Secret), published as NAOKO in the U.S. “Higashino is a deft conjurer of human relationships, and while this is first and foremost a tale of grief— —he infuses it with spasms of sharp humor.” --
East Bay Express on
Himitsu (
The Secret)
“The Devotion of Suspect X has all the brilliant intricacy of the best Golden Age mysteries - puzzle within puzzle, twist after twist - with a modern sensibility. It is a wonderful, fresh take on the classic mystery's intellectual struggle between protagonist and antagonist, adds to it all the right amounts of tension and pacing, places it in a fascinating setting, and gives of all of this plenty of heart." --Jan Burke, New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author of Kidnapped and Bones
"Japanese crime writers excel at many things: one is the slow tightening of the noose that's at the fast-pounding heart of the police procedural. The Devotion of Suspect X is a terrific book in that tradition and it's about time American readers got a crack at it." --SJ Rozan, Edgar Award winning author of Winter and Night and On the Line
“The Devotion of Suspect X is elegant and spare and gripping and vivid. Most of all, however, it is deeply moving, and this is what sets it apart!” --Jesse Kellerman, bestselling author of Trouble and The Executor
"Irresistible! A mind-twisting story that will have readers plunging in to try to solve the crime before the math genius, the physics professor, or the cop get there first." --Nancy Pickard, New York Times bestselling author of The Scent of Rain and Lightning and The Virgin of Small Plains
Review
“The great Norwegian crime novelist Karin Fossum has a special gift for voices. She’s come up with a humdinger in the first-person narrator of
I Can See in the Dark…It’s wrenching.” —
Washington Post "One of the standouts of the Nordic thriller boom." —Vulture
“The queen of Norwegian crime fiction, the prolific and brilliant Fossum has riddled the quaint countryside north of Oslo with imagined crimes…In Fossum’s literary thrillers, the crime is almost incidental to a deeper moral crisis: Her killers aren’t madmen but ordinary people driven to monstrous acts.” —Men’s Journal
"Fossum descends deep into the alienated mind of Riktor to create an exquisitely Poe-ish novel of psychological suspense." —More Magazine
"Fossum vividly unpacks the mind of a troubled individual in this haunting psychological thriller...In this slim stand-alone, Fossum takes a chilling departure from her popular series featuring Norwegian police inspector Konrad Sejer. The results are a compelling—if unsettling—character study for fans of disturbing psychological suspense". —Library Journal
"[A] first-rate novel of suspense...[A] bleak but clever and compelling standalone." —Publishers Weekly, STARRED"In the tradition of Patricia Highsmith and Iain Banks, Fossum creates a creepily realistic sociopath, rolling his story out in a spare Scandinavian style that lends the book a classic horror feel...It’s not light reading to climb inside of a sociopath’s brain, but readers who can handle the darkest tales will be rewarded by Fossum’s streamlined, thoughtfully constructed story." —Booklist"Haunting, twisted, and oddly redemptive." —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Synopsis
The first major English pubication of the award-winning work by one of Japan's best-loved and best-selling novelists
Synopsis
What if you were arrested for a crime you didnt commit—but had to prove your innocence without revealing anything about the crime that you did? A thrilling new stand-alone novel from Norways Queen of Crime, “a truly great writer.” (Jo Nesbo)
Synopsis
Riktor doesnt like the way the policeman storms into his home without even knocking. He doesnt like the arrogant way he walks around the house, taking note of its contents. The policeman doesnt bother to explain why hes there, and Riktor is too afraid to ask. He knows hes guilty of a terrible crime and hes sure the policeman has found him out.
But when the policeman finally does confront him, Riktor freezes. The man is arresting him for something totally unexpected. Riktor doesnt have a clear conscience, but the crime hes being accused of is one he certainly didnt commit. Can he clear his name without further incriminating himself?
This is a gripping, mind-bending stand-alone novel from “a truly great writer” (Jo Nesbø).
About the Author
Born in Osaka and currently living in Tokyo, KEIGO HIGASHINO is one of the most widely known and bestselling novelists in Japan. He is the winner of the Edogawa Rampo Prize (for best mystery), the Mystery Writers of Japan, Inc. Prize (for best mystery) among others. His novels are translated widely throughout Asia.
ALEXANDER O. SMITH has translated a broad variety of novels, manga, and video games, for which he has been nominated for the Eisner Award, and won the ALAs Batchelder Award (for his translation of Miyuki Miyabes Brave Story), and been recognized for his localizations of the video games Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII. He lives with his family in Vermont.