The Devotion of Suspect X

4.2 / 5

A murder mystery is truly masterful when it is still able to surprise you with a plot twist after revealing at the beginning the name of the murderer and how the crime happened.
Such is The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino.
A murder takes place in the first couple of chapters, and we know exactly who, how, what, and where. What we don't know are the details of the cover-up so when the body is discovered, we follow the clues through police detective Kusanagi and police consultant and physicist Dr. Manabu Yukawa (the Inspector Galileo of the series). We are also, alternately, following the murderer and accomplice, single Mom Yasuko and her daughter, Misato, who are guided to cover up their crime by their neighbour, Tetsuya Ishigami, a talented mathematician.
The brilliance of the book is in getting readers to root for the perpetrators of the crime, hoping that the wit and strategy of Ishigami would best that of the equally sharp Dr Yukawa (coincidentally, they were university mates). At the same time, we are eager for the trail of clues to be connected and made sense of by the detectives so that we, too, can be in the know.
The narrative is spare, but the dramatic tension and emotional stakes are ratcheted up each chapter, as Yasuko and her daughter anxiously follow Ishigami's instructions to evade police detection.
This was my first introduction to Higashino's work and likely will not be my last. I was racing through the pages, and though the ending with its surprise revelation was not one I was hoping for, the murder mystery was satisfactorily wrapped up and explained. The last time a murder mystery struck me as particularly inventive in plot and presentation was Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Highly recommended, especially if you are looking for a fast, clever, and well-spun mystery read.