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. But the question before Kaga isn't necessarily who, or how, but why. 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.Īs 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. Years ago when they were both teachers, they were colleagues at the same public school. Or so it seems.Īt the crime scene, Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi. 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.

He calls Hidaka’s wife at the hotel where she’s staying, and the two enter Hidaka’s locked office-where they find the writer’s murdered corpse.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. When Nonoguchi returns to Hidaka’s home, the house is dark. But during his dinner Nonoguchi receives a telephone call: Hidaka, upset, asks his friend to hurry back and help him. When Nonoguchi leaves, Hidaka-on the eve of moving to Canada with his wife-is poised to spend several hours alone writing the final installment of a story due that night. Once Hidaka arrives, so does another female visitor: a woman angry over the author’s thinly veiled portrait of her late brother in one of his novels. Waiting for Hidaka to come home that Tuesday afternoon, Nonoguchi finds a woman prowling in his friend’s garden: a neighbor who thinks Hidaka has poisoned her cat. He is remembering events before and after the murder of his friend, the best-selling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka. “The incident took place on April 16, 1996, a Tuesday.” So begins a first-person account by ex-teacher Osamu Nonoguchi.

“Malice” (Minotaur, 276 pages, $24.95) is a prime example. Keigo Higashino combines Dostoyevskian psychological realism with classic detective-story puzzles reminiscent of Agatha Christie and E.C.

Malice higashino