I am not a fan of
crime thrillers and since I've read Dan Brown's novels I've become
wary of picking one randomly. So when Blogadda announced their this week's
book for review, it took me a while before signing up for it.
The Devotion of
Suspect X is a crime mystery written by the award winning author
Keigo Higashino who is also the President of Mystery Writers of
Japan.
The crisp whodunit
plot is like a game of Chess where two masterminds; a mathematician
extraordinaire and a physicist cum unofficial detective play their
moves and constantly keep outdoing each other. The writer gives clues
throughout the story but its only in the end that the reader is able
to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Yasuko lives a
modest life with her daughter Misato in a Tokyo suburb and works in a
lunch shop. She has completely let go off her past life as a
nightclub hostess in order to escape her blackmailing ex husband
Togashi. But her comfortable life is shattered when Togashi turns up
in her apartment and ends up dead. Yasuko's neighbour Ishigami who is
a mathematical genius comes to her rescue and out of his admiration
for her helps her in covering up the crime. He uses is logical brain
to mislead the police and asks the mother daughter to keep following
his instructions.
He creates a
perfect trap to deceive detective Kusanagi who is investigating the
case. The hiccup in Ishigami's plan comes in the form of an old
classmate and brilliant physicist Yukawa who also is a friend of the
detective. Yukawa starts his personal investigation trying to solve
the problem that Ishigami's mathematician mind has created.
Why does Ishigami
who is devoid of all the emotions has such a devotion towards Yasuko
that he goes to the extent of risking his own life? Why does he
create a scenario where all the paths lead to Yasuko suspecting her
of the murder? And above all, what is more difficult; to create an
unsolvable problem or to solve it? The story got me asking many such
questions and the answers to all of them lie in the last few pages.
The Devotion of
Suspect X is a great one sitting read and did keep me interested till
I flipped the last page.
Book : The Devotion Of Suspect X
Author: Keigo Higashino
Publisher: Hachette India
Price: 350/-
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Author: Keigo Higashino
Publisher: Hachette India
Price: 350/-
Pages: 374
