I have been a big fan of Keigo Higashino. Starting with "Devotion of Suspect X" until my last read "Newcomer", a handful of books that I really enjoyed reading. So why not this, when I saw this on the book stand.
In one of the Japanese towns, a popular girl dies under mysterious circumstances. In the course of the investigation, the suspicion falls on a person who was a suspect in a murder that happened years ago. Like back then, this time also the suspect walks free and goes ahead with taunting the families of the victims. The investigation reaches nowhere. But one day, the suspect ends up dead. Many people seem to benefit from his death. How inspector Galileo carries on with the investigation and does he get to the bottom of this forms the story.
The pace of the story was as in all his previous works. And the read went pretty fast and exciting most of the time. I love the way he keeps us guessing what just happened and sprinkling the suspicion over most of the characters. Having said that, towards the end it actually slowed down. The climax was a damp squib for me. Some of the characters like the parents and their friends and the boyfriend were pretty interesting and ambiguous enough. But as I said the ending was lackluster for me as the way it was presented did not give me a sense of satisfaction even though the twist was there. The suspect had an air of mystery which was well maintained all through.
In short, a pretty decent read marred by an average ending. Mystery lovers may enjoy this as a one-time read.
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