Malice

"He had never imagined that such malice existed in the world."

I have very little experience in the mystery genre. I keep up with Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache books thanks to a prior librarian friend of mine, I've read one Agatha Christie book, and I've watched all of Matlock and Columbo (Columbo > Matlock, any day). But going into this book, I already kind of knew what I liked in the franchise – being taken along on the investigative journey in step with whoever is doing the investigating, meeting the suspects, and hearing their thoughts (vocalized or not) about who they think the murderer is, and why. You sort of get that here, but also not, and the not part is where I didn't connect with this book.

Unfortunately, mystery books being what they are, much of my review will be hidden behind spoilers. Suffice it to say that I was kind of bored, had some minor quibbles about the one-sided dialogue, and thought a lot of what was discussed was academic.

General mystery setup spoilers:

Bestselling author Kunihiko Hidaka is killed via blunt force trauma and being strangled by a telephone cord (ah, the 90s), and is discovered by long-time friend Osamu Nonoguchi and Hidaka's wife. Police detective Kyoichiro Kaga is on the case, but what looks like a locked room murder with solid alibis for all parties involved turns into something a lot darker and more premeditated than it seems.

Spoiler-heavy thoughts about the case as a whole (including the ending):

Maybe I was expecting more mystery in my mystery, but the actual murderer reveal happens within the first half of the book. That was kind of a letdown for me, as the rest of the book revolved around motive—why did Nonaguchi, whom everyone thought of as Hidaka's friend, kill the man? It felt like rather an academic journey rather than anything crime-based, because the end conclusions don't drastically change the outcome any. Nonaguchi is still the murderer, but at least we got our reasons straight, right? Sort of, because the ending was basically, “IDK your mom sucks I guess?” and that's a wrap. I also kind of disliked the one-sided dialogue that the author liked to use a lot of. Some chapters were Kaga's thoughts on the case, as if he were writing them down in a journal or log or something. No dialogue, just musings on what would potentially make Nonaguchi kill a friend (or, “friend”) and why the facts weren't adding up. We also get several chapters leading up to and including the ending where we only get one side of the dialogue. Several chapters are interviews with people who grew up with Nonaguchi, and we just get the interview portion without context. The ending chapter where I was expecting some sort of confrontation between Kaga and Nonaguchi was more one-sided dialogue, where we hear/see Kaga explaining step-by-step his conclusions he drew from his investigations to a listening Nonaguchi, whose reactions we only see through Kaga talking about them. This lent the entire second half of the book a really disconnected feel to me, where I didn't really feel a part of whatever was going on. That sort of killed my enthusiasm a bit more.

I read this one with a group of friends, and I kind of feel like the rube in the room because this book didn't do much for me while everyone else seemed to really like it. Which is fine! There's good points here. I did think the way the different sides of the case (or, perspectives, I guess?) were present was unique, even if it didn't do much for me personally. The motive deep dive was interesting as well, even if it seemed to not amount to much. There's good things here, maybe it just wasn't what I wanted out of a mystery.

Oh my god. I've only read one other book by Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X) and it was really good, but this book really cemented my impression of him. I feel like he's the modern Agatha Christie, coming up with fresh murder mysteries with plot twists you never see coming, leading the reader down a wild goose chase but then ending off with reveals that always feel earned.

Malice gets off almost to a meandering and formulaic start. You think you know where this is going. Somewhere down the line, you start to realise that there's a reason why Higashino uses different perspectives and modes of narration in every chapter, and that “unrealiable narrator” is a huge thing in this book. Halfway through, I thought I had the solution figured out, what with all my knowledge and experience with Agatha Christie. What I hadn't counted on was Higashino actually planning this for me, the reader all along. Dear reader, you are as much part of the mystery here. By the end, I was left slack-jawed and yelling in disbelief as Higashino dropped the bombs on me and revealed how much I was led down the garden path as the characters were. That's amazing, I haven't read a mystery that has made me do that for so long, since I first read Christie novels.

I don't really want to reveal too much about the plot of this book except I'd recommend going into it completely blind. It's easy to follow and so satisfying to read. I'll certainly be reading more from Higashino now, and probably more from this Detective Kaga series as well.