Higashino uses multiple points of view to unravel a complex mystery, and yet I never felt lost.
I read the novel on a flight to Tokyo this summer, my first visit to Japan. After discovering this author a couple years ago, I devoured his Detective Galileo series, and wanted to once again immerse myself in Japanese culture as revealed via a murder mystery.
This is book one in the Detective Kaga series. Higashino is one of my all time favorite authors because he delves so deeply into peoples’ hearts and souls, and their reactions to the victim and the crime. Even though these are translations from Japanese to English, the writing comes through beautifully.
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, in 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.
Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend. Years ago when they were both teachers, they were colleagues at the same high school. Kaga went on to join the police force while Osamu Nonoguchi left to become a full-time writer, though with…
Painted rocks! Okay, that was a tiny part of the story, but I paint rocks as a hobby.
People leave the rocks, with messages of encouragement, for strangers to discover. Oleson used painted rocks as one minor plot thread, but it struck a cord for me. You never know when a kind word – or an ugly one – will change the course of a person’s life, and that is a theme of this novel.
Three damaged people find each other and begin healing from their traumas. This stand alone has elements of mystery and romance, but it read like a literary crossover to me.
A small town. A huge grief. A struggle to see a way forward.
Larry Ahearne’s death in Afghanistan has had a traumatic effect on his friends and family back in Painter’s Springs. His best friend Alaric Morgan—who witnessed Larry’s last moments—suffers from PTSD-induced mutism, which has forced him to leave the army; only his young niece Isabella seems to understand the depths of his distress.
Larry’s sister Marty, an artist who is stalled in her tracks, bears the brunt of their mother’s grief and fury, only supported by her friend and housemate Caro and Caro’s daughter Sophie. The one thing…
Animals! And a zoo! Kristy Farrell is a middle-aged mom, a true everywoman character.
I love stories with ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Kristy seeks a permanent position with a wildlife magazine and goes to the zoo to interview people for an article. There she finds a body – a human body.
When the zoo director dies from snake venom, her brother – in charge of the zoo’s reptiles – is the main suspect. Kristy must clear her brother, and along the way uncovers dangers for exotic animals. Picking a favorite novel among cozy mysteries is like asking me to pick a favorite grandchild.
Schmitt deserves to be brought to the attention of people who love the traditional cozy mystery, but might miss an excellent series from a smaller publisher.
A zoo with its lions, crocodiles, and snakes is a dangerous place — a perfect place for murder. When the director of a Long Island zoo is murdered by snake venom, Kristy Farrell, former English teacher turned wildlife reporter, takes a personal interest in the case. Her brother Tim, the zoo’s curator in charge of reptiles, is the leading suspect. Although the evidence is circumstantial, Kristy is sure the homicide detective, a childhood nemesis of her brother, is out to frame Tim.
The Rose Creek Reads flier promised readers the chance to discuss novels and make new friends. It didn’t say anything about solving a real-life murder. When four women join the new book club hosted by a small-town bookshop, their first meeting ends in disaster. The career women are thrown into the middle of a murder investigation that tests their unique skills as a lawyer, a chemist, an IT expert, and a mathematician. If they can’t solve the case, the historic pottery factory will be shut down forever. Set in the northeastern Oklahoma Ozark foothills, a tangle of clues leads the book club to a mysterious code. At first, the new friends enjoy playing detective, until the mystery hits dangerously close to home.
