As Nonoguchi is about to leave, another female visitor comes calling: a woman angry over Hidaka’s thinly veiled portrait of her late brother in one of his novels written two years ago. He later learns that she is a neighbour who thinks Hidaka has poisoned her cat. He finds a woman there, standing but looking down. While waiting for Hidaka to return home that Tuesday afternoon, he strolls to the garden to admire the cherry blossoms. Keigo Higashino’s oeuvre of the crime mystery genre may not be well-known in the western literary space but he is one of the best-selling fiction writers in Japan and a winner of several literary awards.Įx-teacher turned children’s writer Osamu Nonoguchi drops in on his childhood friend Kunihiko Hidaka, a best-selling author, on the night before Hidaka and his wife leaves Japan to relocate to Canada. I was enthralled in no time despite its nondescript opening line: “The incident took place on April 16, 1996, a Tuesday.” It’s my fastest of the seven reads I’ve done so far this year. Keigo Higashino’s Malice is one crime mystery story that has a distinct and tasteful flavour – a refreshing change to my crime fiction diet fed mainly on Agatha Christie and John Creasey.
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