The Devotion of Suspect X

Killer Love

The release of  Drishyam (in its many versions), raised curiosity about the Japanese film that ostensibly inspired it.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, is not new (it came out in 2011), but its bestseller status (two million copies and counting) that reportedly made it a "national obsession" and of course the films, made one pick it up. Higashino is a hugely popular writer of thrillers in Japan, and has written more books in his Inspector Galileo series.

Galileo is not a cop at all, but a scientist named Manabu Yukawa, who, with his irrefutable logic, helps his schoolmate and buddy Inspector Kusanagi with his cases. The one they have been puzzling over involves the murder of a man called Togashi; the chief suspect is his ex-wife Yasuko, but she has a watertight alibi for herself and her school going daughter Misato.  The cop’s hunch says she is involved with the murder, and, as it happens, she is the killer.

The reader knows that soon into the book, that the single mother, working at a food shop was forced to kill her vicious ex-husband, when he traced her to her new workplace and home, to extort money from her. When Misato sees him attack her mother, she hits him on the head. Then, to save her daughter from being killed by her stepfather, Yasuko strangles him.

Ordinarily, a woman in this situation would call the cops and plead self-defence.  But Yasuko’s neighbor,  the quiet and intense mathematics teacher, Ishigami, turns up at the door and offers to take care of the problem.  ("Trust me," he says. "Logical thinking will get us through this.")  Perhaps, what is lost in translation is the Japanese cops’ unsympathetic attitude towards women, or there’s no reason for Yasuko to get embroiled in the cover up of the murder.

What she doesn’t know is that Ishigami is a mathematical genius, and in love with her. Every day he goes to her workplace to buy his lunch, but actually, only to see her. He has not been able to express his feelings to her, because he is painfully shy and not attractive looking.

The town’s cops are unusually thorough and grill everybody even remotely connected to the case. But they can’t pin anything on Yasuko and Misato because their alibi holds. Every evening, Ishigami calls Yasuko from a public phone and gives her instructions. Later, he leaves detailed commands in her mail box.

Kusanagi approaches his friend Yukawa, who knows Ishigami from school and is also aware of his extraordinary brain. He is certain that Ishigami is somehow responsible for saving Yasuko’s skin.  Without much being said, the two geniuses seem to read each other’s minds, and Ishigami knows that Yukawa knows. However, till the very end, neither Yukawa nor the reader know just how big a sacrifice Ishigami has made to protect the woman he loves, even though he is aware of her attraction towards another suitor.

The plot is complicated but far less contrived than Drishyam.  Higashino weaves a delicate web of romance and suspense with simple prose—not a sentence extra, not a word out of place.  Not in the league of American or Scandinavian police procedurals and murder mysteries, but a satisfying read, nonetheless.

The Devotion Of Suspect X

by Keigo Higashino

Translated from the Japanese by Alexander O. Smith with Elye J. Alexander

Published by Minotaur.

Pages:  298