Newcomer By Keigo Higashino

I placed a pre-order for Keigo Higashino’s “Newcomer” about one and a half year ago. It was at that not released yet. Book Depository UK sent out the book in mid-November and I only received it a few days ago. Kudos, Pos Malaysia! Keigo Higashino became one my top favourite authors after I read his phenomenal  The Devotion of Suspect X a few years ago. On the day I received Newcomer, I started reading it and was able to finish reading it the next day as it had me hooked.

Newcomer by Keigo Higashino

Mineko Mitsui, a middle-aged divorcee living alone in her small apartment in the Nihonbashi precinct of Tokyo, has been strangled to death. She is a newcomer to the area and live a quiet life and people who know her insisted that she is the last person on earth to have enemies. Her murder is thus as baffling as it is unlikely.

Detective Kyochiri Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department is also a newcomer to the area, having been transferred recently to the Nihonbashi precinct. Assigned to the task force investigating the murder, Kaga pursues loose ends and starts interviewing the people who are somehow connected to the victim – the insurance salesman whose card was found in the victim’s apartment; workers at the local coffee shop she frequented; the boy who bought a box of pastries that was found in the apartment; the victim’s estranged son who is struggling to be an actor; her ex-husband who is a successful businessman; the accountant of her ex-husband, among others.

Suspects and a motive are hard to identify so Kaga scours around the area, visiting the shops, cafes and even the temple the victim visited in her last week or two.

Newcomer is a cleverly plotted mystery that is different from traditional crime fiction. It will appeal to fans of classic detective stories by the likes of Agatha Christie and Georges Simeon. There is no graphic violence, car chases, gunfights or explosions. Its intricate plotting will leave readers guessing until the very end.

Each vignette of Newcomer — nine in all — is a self-contained story and its own focus characters. At the outset of the book, Higashino offers a list of characters from each vignette―very helpful, especially for readers who might not be accustomed to Japanese names.

I find Newcomer an easy read but a highly entertaining one.  Each time I finish reading a Keigo Higashino book, I wish the story has been a bit longer as I can’t seem to get enough of his plotting. I eagerly await his next book!