Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

Salvation of a Saint is by Japanese author Keigo Higashino. His previous books, Naoko and especially The Devotion of Suspect X, are highly recommended.

Called "the Japanese Stieg Larsson", his mysteries are puzzles where you can guess who the villain is, but the question is how they did it.

In Salvation of a Saint, Yoshitaka Mashiba decides that the purpose of marriage is to procreate, and if his wife is unsuccessful within a year, it is not worth continuing the relationship. He needs to find a partner who can have children; being pregnant before marriage would be ideal.

His wife Ayane has agreed to this, but when the year is up, he tells her there is another woman and she should honor their agreement. Ayane leaves for her family in Hokkaido.

The new woman, Hiromi, shares a morning coffee with him. When she returns that evening, she finds him dead on the floor of his living room, a cup of coffee he made spilled on the floor. There were no visitors, and there was no poison in the coffee that morning.

And the number one suspect was miles away in Hokkaido.

It is up to Detective Kusanagi and his partner Utsumi to untangle the truth. Utsumi is a great character, using her intuition and youthful skills to keep her male counterparts in the right direction. She also visits Kusanagi's old physicist friend Yukawa, known by the nickname Galileo. He has helped in the previous Devotion of Suspect X case and has an unorthodox scientific approach to crime. Together they piece together a seemingly impossible hypothesis which, unbelievably, could be the only way a murder like this could take place.

This is a locked room mystery, a particular favorite of mine. I did find the answer a little far-fetched, but that was part of the fun. My guess at who-done-it seemed impossible.

I enjoyed dissecting every bit of this mystery, eager to discover a clue the detectives overlooked. A great read and a great puzzle.

I recommend both Salvation of a Saint and Devotion of Suspect X highly.

2012 / Paperback / 336 pages