Review of "Salvation of a Saint" [92]

Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino
Minotaur, ISBN 978-0312600686
October 2, 2012, 336 pages

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"I love you more than anything in the world. That's why your words were like a knife stabbing me in the heart.
That's why you have to die too."

Yoshitaka Mashiba is a man who seems unworthy of  being loved. Yes, he is handsome and rich and quite successful. But there is one thing he lacks and one thing that he will do whatever he must do to get. He wants a wife who will give him a child and when she can not give him what he wants, she will be cast aside. It seems he is already working on an alternative plan to get what he wants.

So, when he ends up dead, the victim of poisoning, his soon to be ex-wife is suspect number one. Except, she was hours away, visiting her parents when he died and has an excellent alibi. Lots of motive, but no opportunity. Of course, there is his girl friend. She was the last to see him, she found the body and she had a key to his house, the perfect opportunity. But since she is pregnant with his child, she seems to have no motive. What about his business partner? Everything seems good there, but did he perhaps have a hidden reason to kill his long time friend? Or is there someone from his past that might have reason to see him dead?
But if so, how did they do it?
Somehow, someone got the poison in that coffee cup without leaving any other clues...just maybe it is the perfect crime!

The wife seem the obvious choice, but for his own reasons Detective Kusanagi, back after The Devotion of Suspect X, would like to find the murderer elsewhere..because he is just a little smitten with the wife. But his new assistant, Detective Utsumi, is not so sure. And how better to overcome her boss's concerns than to enlist his old friend, the brilliant university professor, physicist Manabu Yukawa, to help them figure it out. The challenge of a perfect crime is right up his alley! But is it possible that even if he figures out how the crime was committed, he will not be able to prove it and the murderer will get away with it. Oh, horrors!

As much as I love a gruesome mystery..and I do..this book is something quite different. Think Sherlock Holmes (Dr. Yukawa) and Watson (Detective Kusanagi) with a dash of Agatha Christie and a classic locked room mystery, all set in modern Japan. And while it is a police procedural, except for one rather neat dead body, this is more about clever conversations, careful time lines and cups of tea and coffee being served than car chases or shoot-em outs.

I saw a review..I think in the NY Times.. that called this book 'elegant' and I understand why. The characters, even the suspects, are subtly drawn and except for the dead man, quite likable. I especially like the character of Utsumi, who is an excellent balance to her sometime hotheaded boss, Detective Kusanagi. They make a very effective team.
This is a smart book and pay attention if you want any chance of figuring out not only who-done-it, but how-done-it.

Higashino is a hugely popular author in Japan, the author of 16 books, and it is easy to understand why. We mystery lovers can only hope to soon see more of his books translated into English and published here in the near future.

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My thanks to the publisher and Amazon Vine for providing a copy of this book for review.

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Review of "Not Dead Yet"

Not Dead Yet by Peter James 
ISBN 978-0312642846
November 27, 2012, 448 pages

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Back for his eighth appearance is Detective Superintendent Roy Grace and as usual, he has his hands full.

First, he is called to a chicken farm where the mutilated body of a man is found. Well, part of a body, since the arms and legs and head are missing. Was this some sort of mob hit, or a crazy serial killer..or what?  They will have to identify the body first, which is easier said than done with no head or hands, and pressure is on from above to get it solved quickly.

As if that were not enough to handle, Grace is put in charge of another situation as well. The famous singer, pop star and actress...think Madonna-like...Gaia Lafayette is coming to Grace's Brighton, England to film a movie role on location and he is put in charge of security. This could be a huge boost to local tourism, so it is very important that everything goes smoothly and the filming gets good press. But to make it worse, it seems that someone..or as it turns out maybe more than one someone...is out to do Gaia and her young son harm and Grace will be at the very center of the race to catch a very troubled fan before it all comes to a very horrible end.

As I said, this is the eight book in the series. But it is only the second that I read and let me assure you that jumping in will not be a problem, at all.  Grace is a great character and while he is dealing with some interesting personal issues in this book, more than enough background will be given to get us up to speed and involved in his story. And I must say, perhaps set up one of the storylines for the next book with a bit of a cliffhanger involving someone from his past who may be getting ready to make a surprise reappearance.

The plot is quite good, with lots of twists and turns and a few surprise revelations that will keep you guessing until the very end of the book. There are several threads that at first seem unrelated but will slowly all come together...perhaps just testing the lengths of believability a tiny bit. Happily though  not enough to be too troubling or unrealistic.

A good solid British police procedural that will give the reader hours of enjoyment and I think tempt you to join the line waiting for the next installment to see how a few things play out.

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My thanks to the publisher and Amazon Vine for providing a copy of this book for review.

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a review of "The Cold Room" [32]

The Cold Room- A Taylor Jackson Novel by J.T.Ellison
(Mira Books, ISBN 978-0-7783-2714-1

They call him The Conductor. The name may sound classy, but there is nothing classy about the serial killer stalking Nashville, kidnapping and killing young women. He locks them in a glass box in his basement, starves them to death and then...how to say this...has his way with them. Yes, after he kills them. Necrosadism is the official term for it.
Then, just to tie it up all neatly, he stages the body to recreate a work of art and leaves music playing in the background. Which is where he gets the name The Conductor.

Taylor Jackson is still reeling from her demotion and the shakeup that has taken place in the Nashville Police Department, a storyline you will need to go back and read about in the previous book in this series. But is weird as things are at work, and they are weird, the job is the job and she and her fiance FBI profiler, Dr. John Baldwin, are hot on the trail of the killer. In fact, Baldwin is stuck by many similarities between these murders and a serial killer he has been assisting the Italian and English police pursue. Which explains why the copper from the New Scotland Yard drops in to lend a hand. Is it a copy cat, has he moved to the US...or is something even odder going on?

Sadly, I did not like this book as much as I hoped.
First, I do like a bit of suspense in my 'mysteries', something almost totally lacking from this book. No, this is a thriller more than any sort of mystery. We know the killer, his name, his job, how he kills, why he kills...all in the first few pages. Granted, the murders are a bit more complicated than it appears at first, but the twist is hardly a huge surprise.

Second, there are a bit too many smoldering looks going around for my taste. Not to mention that one of the sources of said smoldering looks, the handsome New Scotland Yard detective James "Memphis" Highsmythe, is actually quite creepy. If that was the intent, the author was successful, but if we are to consider him as an actual romantic possibility for our heroine, it was totally unbelievable.

If you have a great interest in police procedurals, you may love this book, since that is really the emphasis of the story. And some of the characters are quite interesting. If you have read the previous three books in the series, which I have not, no doubt you will be more vested in them than I was. This is a book in a series that really cries out to be read in order. There are a number of references to incidents in past books that the reader will really not understand, not to mention the whole Pretender thread, which we can not appreciate not having read the first three books.

A well written book, based on a good idea, with some good characters, but one whose approach to a very creepy and fascinating crime did not really live up to my hopes.  

 

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I received this book from Library Thing Early Reviewers.

My ER drought of over a year and a half is over! 

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