Book Review: 'Salvation Of A Saint'

Book: Salvation Of A Saint
Author: Keigo Higashino
Publisher: Abacus
Pages: 384
Price: Rs350

Fans of Japanese author Keigo Higashino will know he likes to get  straight to the point. So it comes as no surprise when, by the end of the first chapter of Salvation Of A Saint, you already know who will die in the next few pages.

That's not all. Most readers will probably guess the who part of the whodunit. You will also know what will be used to kill him you get a hint that this is not the only death in the book.

By Chapter 2, there’s an extramarital affair followed by a dead body. Suave CEO and ladies’ man, Yoshitaka Mashiba, is found dead with a cup of spilled coffee next to him. His distraught mistress finds his body in his upmarket Tokyo home. The only traces of poison are in the coffee grounds and the cup. Nothing suggests a forced entry and he was alone at the time of death. Was this a suicide or the perfect crime?

The mistress has a watertight alibi so the most logical suspect and the one person with a motive is Yoshitaka’s mysterious and beautiful wife Ayane. But she was visiting her parents in Hokkaido, hundreds of miles away from Tokyo. So she's out.

Or is she?

If everything that constitutes the essence of most crime novels has been revealed in the first two chapters, one may wonder what is the point of reading till the end? But those who have read Higashino’s unputdownable Devotion of Suspect X will know better. In Devotion..., the suspense was never about who will be killed or even the killer's identity. We knew that in the first few chapters itself. The question was: How did they get away without leaving any evidence? This question torments Detective Kusanagi and his team in Higashino's latest book too.

This time, the crusty Kusanagi hopes to do without the help of college friend and genius Professor Yukawa who has informally helped him in many cases. The reason: The last investigation (Devotion...) damaged their friendship and now both steer clear of one another.

However, the latest entrant to Kusanagi’s department, feisty female detective
Utsumi, has other ideas when she suspects Kusanagi has fallen for prime suspect Ayane. Utsumi dangles the case before Yukawa and he simply can't resist a good challenge.

It’s not easy to continue the legacy of bestseller as successful as Devotion.... Salvation…is a gripping read. As Kusanagi, Utsumi and Yukawa unravel the complicated tapestry of the Mashibas’ lives to uncover the truth, you face a roller coaster of emotions as an almost unbelievable human deceit is revealed.

But perhaps this time, Higashino tries too hard. The detectives, with help from Yukawa, eventually figure out how the poison reached the coffee cup. Yukawa pieces together what happened in his typical bloodhound-married-to-logic fashion. But there's still no evidence to nail the murderer. By the time the evidence is conjured out of a drawer and the suspect is confronted with it, there are a few unimportant but untidy threads fluttering about. The author ties them all up into pretty little bows in the final chapter and it’s unsatisfying because the explanations feel forced.

That said, Salvation... is still a gripping read. Just don't expect it to match Devotion....