I was bound to read this book. A year go I was on a holiday in Japan. While I was traveling in a local train in Tokyo, I saw this twenty something girl reading this book with a serious expression on her face, the cover and the headline of the novel intrigued me and when I got off in the next station, I went and bought this book in a bookstore.
The Devotion of Suspect X is a crime/mystery thriller written by Keigo Higashino in 2005. It is his third in his Detective Galileo series and one of his most famous books till date.
This novel has won many awards, including the Naoki Prize, which is a highly acclaimed award in Japan.
For a person like me who has been brought up with a staple of American crime thrillers, this was a refreshing change. I definitely need to read novels by authors from different countries.
It is an original Japanese novel that has been translated into English. I must say, its a pretty good translation. What I liked about this novel is that, it is not a classic whodunnit.
The story goes like this…..
Yasuko is a divorced, single mother of a teenage girl, who leads a quiet life. Things change when her abusive ex-husband shows up at her door step one day.
She and her daughter kill him accidentally, Yasuko prepares to turn herself to the police. Her devoted neighbor Ishigami, a brilliant math teacher enters the scene and creates a perfect alibi for her.
The plot of the novel is just amazing, it might look like a simple murder mystery, but it is not. If you love murder mysteries or crime thrillers, this novel is for you.
The Devotion of Suspect X is such an intelligent read. It is subtle, logical and beguiling with a really sad ending.
Some of the quotes which I liked from the novel are:
“Sometimes, all you had to do was exist in order to be someone’s savior.”
“Even when you’re at the top, there’s always something higher.”
“That’s what happens when you free people from the restraints of time. They make their own rigid schedule.”
“Which is harder: devising an unsolvable problem, or solving that problem?”
megsblogged.com 