Malice By Keigo Higashino

Why did it have to end so soon? That was my lament after I finished the last page of Keigo Higashino’s “Malice” last night. It is an evocative page-turner that I can hardly put down once I started reading it and is definitely one of the most captivating books I have read this year.

Keigo Higashino’s “Malice”

This is the fifth Keigo Higashino’s book that I have read. The plot is fiendishly clever with Higashino offering one twist after another. This is an utter gem of a murder-mystery!

In the first chapter we have a murder. By the end of chapter two, it is pretty obvious who the murderer is. But what is the motive? Malice is more whydunnit than whodunit but that does not in any way make the book any less engrossing. This is a crime fiction that unfolds with an unusual style of narration and a wonderful game of cat and mouse from beginning till the end.

The plot is deceptively simple. Kunihiko Hidaka, a famous Japanese novelist with numerous blockbusters to his name, is found murdered in his home on the night before he and his wife are planning to move to Vancouver to start a new life there. Osamu Nonoguchi, a children’s author and a childhood friend of Hidaka, finds the body and soon becomes the leading suspect. Enter the detective, Kyoichiro Kaga, who happens to be an acquaintance of Osamu.

The police cannot figure out what was Nonoguchi’s motive for murdering Hidaka. Without a motive, the police cannot press charges or move to trial, as any confession from the murderer could easily be thrown out of court. As Kaga uncovers more information, and as Nonoguchi’s involvement becomes stranger and more complicated, it becomes obvious that absolutely nothing can be taken at face value.

The intrigue of the novel lies largely in the narrative that is split between Nonoguchi’s written accounts of events and investigating detective Kyoichiro Kaga’s case notes. Each new instalment casts the facts in a different light and makes us doubt much of what we have read before. While reading the book, I thought I have got the gist of the story on a few occasions only to find that I was completely wrong.

As I delve into the story I begin to take things at face value and then Keigo Higashino moves the goalposts and takes me on a different path, forcing me to question everything I thought was true in the beginning. The story centers on the themes of author rivalry and the long-term effects of childhood trauma.

The title begs the question of which one of the two writers was ultimately guilty of malice. Was it Kunihiko Hidaka or was it Osamu Nonoguchi?  Revealing the answer would be a big spoiler. Go grab a copy of the book to find out the answer. It will twist your mind in deliciously intriguing ways.

So far only 6 of Keigo Higashion’s books have been translated into English. I have read 5 of them and the only one that I haven’t read is “Naoko” which I have not been able to find in the local bookstores. I read online that his next novel to be translated into English is “The Name Of The Game Is Kidnapping” and will be published next year.  I eagerly look forward to getting my hands on these two books.