Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

About the Book

When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away? As Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. When his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced... SALVATION OF A SAINT is a magnificently complex and page-turning thriller starring international crime fiction's most enigmatic sleuth. This is essential reading for all fans of exceptional crime fiction.

My view

Yoshitaka, the man of the house is murdered on a weekend. Married to Ayane, who is in her parents house during the time of murder is the first suspect. She has her best friend and intern, Utsumi take care of the house in her absence, by giving her the keys of the house.

With each of these ladies having a reason to kill the man, Yoshitaka, both fall under the doubtful eyes. How? More than who, it’s the “how” that holds the store named Salvation of a Saint penned by Keigo Higashino.

Enter detective Kusangi along with Professor Yukawa, takes this task of solving the mystery. Again not the mystery of who did it. But how the hell was it done. Story is told in third person, I was often told that crime thrillers are best told in first person’s point of view, this one however erases that myth off my mind. This way of story telling gives a lot of room for the writer to change the focus on the suspects.

Al though Yoshitaka is no more, while we flip pages we get to know a lot about the victim. He is the one who wants a family badly. Some of his natures are however very business minded. Wife Ayane is soft sober and strong willed through.

There aren’t many characters in the book, which is good. I cannot imagine remembering complicated names of too many people. Bunch of people, a dead man in focus and we are done with entire book.

 Keigo Higashino signature style of telling story is revealing who did it; at the second/third chapter of his book, unlike most of the crime plots where readers keep guessing the murderer. This however does not affect the story in any way till the end. As I said before, after who is revealed, how keeps us engrossed in the book!!!

Information in each chapter is perfect. Not too less and Not too much that it confuses commoners. But just right, perfect. One also gets to see “glimpses of Japan”, their society, their ways of living and how emotional they are (not) at times, which I love because it is almost similar to that of Korean people. Only lame thing being Kusangi developing feelings for victim’s wife sounded very, clichéd to me.

Pick it up for a calm, detailed investigation style of a crime thriller. If you haven’t read “Devotion of X”, you should take that too.   

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