Higashino always makes me think just a little bit more than the average mystery. This is billed as the final book in the Kaga series, but I don't know that you need to know anything about the other books. I certainly didn't remember anything about him, except that Detective Kaga acts as Higoshino's Holmes, Spade, or anyone else with an almost uncanny ability to delve inside the mysteries of a case.

At any rate, this one opens with a story between a female club owner, a woman seeking employment as a hostess, and a regular customer, and the quiet relationships that happen, until the woman is one day found dead, decades later. It touches off a bizarre chain of connections that become evident later. The story then jumps to the Tokyo police interviewing the parents of a Michiko Oshitani, a woman who was found dead in a stranger's Tokyo apartment. She was recently visiting a high school friend, Hiromi Asai, who was opening a play at a prestigious playhouse. As the connections pile up, investigating detective Matsumiya finds himself consulting his cousin Kaga. 

There's a lot of twists and turns to this story, and the cast of characters is extensive. There is a list in the beginning, which I promptly forgot in my Kindle edition. Had I a papercopy, I would definitely had put a sticky-note there. Yet characterization shone. Despite the large cast, I still felt I had a sense of each of them.

What struck me, as the police quite tirelessly worked every angle of this murder case, is how much work they were putting into it, all these people they were interviewing and the connections they were finding. When Matsumiya is suspicious that the burned body of a homeless person is somehow connected, it seems so far-fetched for coincidences--then I remembered this is Japan we are talking about. 

You know, the country with a 0.25 murder rate per 100,000 people. America? Oh, America is cruising along at 6.52 murders per 100,000. Forget moving fast; life's pretty disposable around here. It's hard to conceive of what that would be as a police officer, really. I mean, no wonder the Toyko detectives have time to schlepp back and forth to Michiko's home and interview childhood friends. No wonder they care about the death of a homeless person. It's weird, though, because it means I have to set aside some of the tropes I have as an American. 

So, stretchy-stretchy with crime aside, the Japanese culture was not quite as prominent an angle, at least in setting (I remember the bar-club of Silent Parade and the shopping district of Newcomer), though it was very important culturally. This translation was done by Giles Murray, who is not my preferred translator of the two I've read so far. There are definitely a few awkward word choices, particularly when it comes to colloquialisms used in dialogue (Telling someone they are going to be late: "Kaga gave a wry grin. 'Time to stop talking twaddle and get your skates on. Unless you want to miss your train that is.'") But on the whole it feels much smoother than Silent Parade. 

This was written in 2013 and translated this year, so there are some cultural/time gaps. It's main cultural reference ends up being the Japanese earthquake/tsunami of 2011. Highly recommended if you are in the mood for an absorbing mystery--not thriller, but police procedural mystery. These days, that's harder and harder to find.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an arc of this book!advance-reader-copy my-library-kindle mystery136 s4 comments Liong192 248

I can't tear myself away from this book.

It's not just good, it's captivating.

Higashino's latest, The Final Curtain, just released in English this December, stands as one of his finest works.

I was fully satisfied with the ending of The Final Curtain.

Every question finds its answer in this book.asian-literature crime fiction ...more129 s8 comments Barbara1,507 5,140



This review was first posted on Mystery & Suspense Magazine. Check it out for features, interviews, and . https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/th...


3.5 stars

In this fourth book in the 'Kyoichiro Kaga' series, the police detective helps his cousin investigate two murders. The novel works fine as a standalone.



Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga, who's stationed in the Nihonbashi Precinct of Tokyo, endured a traumatic incident as a child. When Kaga was twelve years old, his mother Yuriko left home.....



......leaving Kaga and his father to fend for themselves.



Kaga heard nothing more about his mother until she died sixteen years later, and Kaga was asked to collect her ashes. At that time, Kaga learned that - years after his mother left home - she developed a relationship with a man named Shunichi Watabe.

It's now a decade after Yuriko died, and Kaga is drawn into two murder inquiries that may shed light on his mother's life.

The first case begins when a woman named Michiko Oshitani, who recruits clients for a cleaning contractor, is found strangled in a Tokyo apartment.



Michiko lived far from Tokyo, but was visiting a former schoolmate in the city. Afterwards, Michiko was killed in the home of a man called Mutsuo Koshikawa, who seems to have disappeared.



A week later, an identified homeless man is found strangled and burned close to where Michiko was killed.



The fact that both Michiko and the homeless man were strangled lead the Tokyo Metropolitan Police to believe the murders are connected. One of the Tokyo homicide detectives, Shuhei Matsumiya, is cousins with Detective Kaga, who's legendary for catching killers. So Matsumiya asks Kaga to help investigate the two homicides.



The police speculate that the homeless victim might be the missing Matsuo Koshikawa, in whose apartment Michiko was found. This is hard to prove, however, because Koshikawa left nothing behind that could identify him.

A prime suspect for Michiko's murder is the woman Michiko was visiting in Tokyo, a theater director called Hiromi Asai.



Michiko and Hiromi went to junior high school together, but haven't seen each other in years.



When the investigators interview Hiromi, the theater director says Michiko had something important to tell her, and that Michiko planned to return home right after they spoke. Hiromi says she knows nothing more about Michiko's activities in Tokyo.

The Tokyo homicide squad, along with Kaga, dissect Hiromi's life bit by bit. They discover that Hiromi's mother deserted the family when she was in junior high school, and her father's subsequent death landed Hiromi in an orphanage.



Nevertheless, Hiromi's ambition and talent helped her become an actress, a writer, and a director.

In an effort to discover why Hiromi might have killed her old friend Michiko, the homicide detectives try to interview people who know (or knew) Hiromi well. These include Hiromi's junior high school homeroom teacher;



Hiromi's ex-husband;



the producer of Hiromi's smash hit play;



an actress Hiromi worked with; and others.



In the meantime, a police sketch artist produces an image of the missing apartment resident Koshikawa, drawn from descriptions of his neighbors.



Kaga uncovers evidence that leads him to think Koshikawa might also be known as Shunichi Watabe - the man with whom Kaga's mother had a romance before she died.

The dual murder investigations of Michiko and the homeless man get very complicated as various clues are uncovered. These include a calendar that lists twelve bridges in Nihonbashi Precinct, one for each month; train timetables; an extramarital affair; and a suicide.



As the story unfolds many secrets are revealed, and it's clear that not everything is as it seems. Kaga's detective skills cut through the chaff, however, and he uncovers the truth.

I enjoyed the police procedural plot and the glimpses of Japanese culture, such as the Nihonbashi bridge-washing ritual; sleeping on futons; kendo workshops; and more.



Thanks to Netgalley, Keigo Higashino, and St. Martin's Press for a copy of the book.

You can follow my at https://bybarbsaffer.blogspot.com43 s10 comments Faith2,010 586

This is the last book of the series. I enjoy this author, but this book works fine as a standalone so it is not necessary to have read any of the previous books. In this police procedural Detective Kaga (a Holmes- investigator) investigates several connected murders. I d the backstories of the characters more than I d the police procedure. The police did make some connections, but there is no way they (or the reader) can understand the “why” or “how” of anything without the aid of the lengthy explanations from the other characters. And there were some huge coincidences. There were lots of intriguing twists in the book. It was a little hard to keep track of all of the characters, especially since some of them used several names.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. audio netgalley overdrive ...more34 s4 comments Bam cooks the books ;-)2,031 271

This is my first book written by author Higashino. I was invited to read an arc by the publisher via NetGalley and jumped at the chance after reading that Bookpage described Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga as 'a modern-day Poirot.' Although this is book #4 in the series, it can be read as a standalone.

The book begins ten years in the past when Detective Kaga goes to collect the ashes of his deceased mother, a woman who had deserted her family without any explanation when he was a young boy. Now, during the current investigation of two strangulation deaths, Kaga begins to believe there are ties to his mother's past.

Kaga is an 'intuitive' investigator who often proceeds on his hunches. The plot was quite twisty and intriguing; the conclusion, satisfying. I would enjoy reading more of Higashino's books, although I admit to finding the Japanese names quite daunting to keep track of at times.2023-netgalley 2023-reads mystery16 s2 comments Mook Woramon717 157

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