I wasn’t familiar with the author or the book before I read it, so I don’t think I would have discovered it myself. This book was a great recommendation for me - I’ve been reading a lot of twisty, not-gross pageturners recently, with characters showing hints of obsession and genius, and this was just perfect for me. (It wasn’t quite 100% Gore Free, but totally readable for me, and I have a very low tolerance for guts!) Part of hiding the murder involves a certain amount of blood, but it happens offstage so I wasn’t unnerved or grossed out by it. Sure, he volunteers to be a criminal accessory after the murder, but I couldn’t help rooting for him. There was a single-mindedness and contentment that reminded me of Keiko in Convenience Store Woman, but he was humanized by taking a temporary teaching job due to family commitments, and then finding himself there, years later, while his classmates wondered why such a brilliant man teaches at an average high school. I enjoyed the character of mathematician Ishigami so much. There are so many twists and revelations, right up to the last pages of the last chapter. The novel unfolds in alternating focus, between the police detective who feels something isn’t quite right with Yasuko’s perfect alibi, and Yasuko, following Ishigami’s directions and trying not to draw any more suspicion on her self and her daughter. The only possibly flaw is that “Detective Galileo,” a friend and sometime consultant for the police department, is Ishigami’s old classmate and also an investigative genius. Ishigami, it turns out, is a criminal mastermind, devoted to keeping Yasuko and her daughter safe. Ishigami, a quiet math teacher and their next door neighbor, hears the commotion, and calmly offers to hide the body.

Yasuko, a former nightclub hostess and now a lunch counter worker, accidentally kills her terrible ex-husband when defending herself and her daughter.

Osusume Books promises to send carefully recommended Japanese novels, and without revealing too much, because this is a fascinating mystery with loads of twists, I can say it was a perfect choice for me. I got Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X through Osusume Books.

The devotion of suspect