Malice
A Mystery
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4.3 • 87 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"This smart and original mystery is a true page-turner… will baffle, surprise, and draw out suspicion until the final few pages. With each book, Higashino continues to elevate the modern mystery as an intense and inventive literary form." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Fiendishly clever… Higashino offers one twist after another… Readers will marvel at the artful way the plot builds to the solution." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.
At the crime scene, Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi. Years ago when they were both teachers, they were colleagues at the same public school. Kaga went on to join the police force while Nonoguchi eventually left to become a full-time writer, though with not nearly the success of his friend Hidaka.
As Kaga investigates, he eventually uncovers evidence that indicates that the two writers' relationship was very different that they claimed, that they were anything but best friends. But the question before Kaga isn't necessarily who, or how, but why. In a brilliantly realized tale of cat and mouse, the detective and the killer battle over the truth of the past and how events that led to the murder really unfolded. And if Kaga isn't able to uncover and prove why the murder was committed, then the truth may never come out.
Malice is one of the bestselling—the most acclaimed—novel in Keigo Higashino's series featuring police detective Kyochiro Kaga, one of the most popular creations of the bestselling novelist in Asia.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this mind-bending mystery about a pair of writers, you never know if a clue is fact or fiction. The first novel in Japanese author Keigo Higashino’s long-running series finds investigator Detective Kyoichiro Kaga trying to crack the case of Kunihiko Hidaka, a bestselling novelist who was murdered. The author’s friend, Osamu Nonoguchi—a writer who’s much less renowned—was the last person to see Hidaka alive and soon comes under suspicion. As the story shifts between Kaga’s and Nonoguchi’s points of view, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell which version of events is true. Higashino weaves a brilliant story within a story, expertly concealing key pieces of the puzzle like the mystery master he is. A tricky cat-and-mouse tale with surprising psychological depth, Malice is a mystery to be savored.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1996, Higashino's first Kyoichiro Kaga novel to be translated into English is as fiendishly clever as The Devotion of Suspect X (2011), the first in his Detective Galileo series. Kaga finds that he has a personal connection to a murder case. Popular novelist Kunihiko Hidaka was strangled in his home, in some unspecified part of Japan, not long after a visit from his old friend Osamu Nonoguchi, who was also Kaga's colleague when the detective was a teacher. Nonoguchi, one of two potential suspects, has no obvious motive for committing the crime, unlike the other suspect, Miyako Fujio. A few years earlier, Hidaka wrote a successful novel featuring a nasty lead character, a thinly disguised version of Miyako's brother, Masayo. Higashino offers one twist after another, all of which touch on the theme suggested by the book's title. Readers will marvel at the artful way the plot builds to the solution of Hidaka's murder.
Customer Reviews
A unique mystery, a treasure!
This is my first, but not my last, Higashino-san’s novel. The story is a fantastic journey into the mind of a malicious person, told in a captivating and entertaining story-telling. Highly recommended.
Wonderfully
Here is a detective story where you never know what is happening next. Told from two points of view, it is elegantly written and engrossing. Highly recommended
Absolutely brilliant!
This is unlike any mystery novel I've ever read. Simply stunning.