A book review by Dennis D. McDonald

This is another “detective Galileo“ mystery. This time physics professor Ukawa is consulting on a sea-bottom resource development project near a small Japanese seaside resort town that has seen better days. While staying at a local hotel he backs into a local investigation of the mysterious death of another hotel visitor. What seems at first to be a straightforward investigation soon spirals into complexity with backstory tendrils reaching back to Tokyo and the detectives there Galileo has worked with before.

 As with other mysteries by this author the intricately plotted story evolves gradually with an emphasis on personality and Japanese society rather than action. The technical details of the murder—if it was in fact murder—are only gradually revealed. The reader is left guessing about both motivations and actions, almost to the very end.

As with Higashino’s other novels I am again impressed with how personalities are delineated and with how backstory details, relevant to the investigation, or gradually revealed, sometimes in surprising ways.

My only real complaint is with the narrator of the recorded book I borrowed from my local library. He assigns almost stereotypical Western sounding voice patterns to the main characters,  especially the youngest one. That makes the narration somewhat jarring given that the author has put so much effort into realistically portraying Japanese interpersonal behaviors and customs. 

Review text copyright (c) 2023 by Dennis D. McDonald

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