My review for the book Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

Title: Salvation of a Saint                                             
Author: Keigo Higashino
ISBN: 978-0-3491-39334-0
Genre: Crime Fiction
Publishers: Hachetteindia
Price: INR 350

Page: 377

My rating: 4/5

I liked to read Foreign books because you can know about the different cultures. This is my first read by this author and he does not disappoint the reader. This story is a joy to read and you never know what is going to happen next. It was bit difficult to read the names of the characters in the book. I was mixed up because of the similar names. This is Japanese book which is being translated to English. Keigo Higashino has definitely done a great job by concentrating more on the case than on the characters themselves, especially from those in the police department.   

The story plot is something like this. Before being murdered, Yoshitaka Mashiba informs his wife Ayane that he wants a divorce, and she decides to go away for the weekend to visit her family in Hokkaido, leaving Yoshitaka alone in the house. While Ayane is in Hokkaido, Yoshitaka's lover, Hiromi, visits him on Saturday. When she returns to his house on Sunday, she finds him in his living room, dead from arsenic poisoning. It's clear from the beginning of this book that the victim had been poisoned. The poison was in the water which he used to make his coffee. The most likely suspect would be his wife of one year or his mistress who is three months pregnant. The problem with the wife is that she was in Hokkaido (the northern most of the large islands) and the victim was in Tokyo one thousand miles away.

From hereon in 80% of the dialogue is related to the water used to make the coffee and how the poison got into the water. Over and over and over the participant in the investigation ask each other, "How did the poison get into the water for the coffee?" It's especially confusing in the mistress had come over the night after the wife left, made coffee that night and in the morning before she left.

Just keep one thing in mind while reading the book, please make sure you concentrate as the character names can get quite confusing as regards to the gender as well as their placement.

Really enjoyed the simple, yet smart writing and plot. This is a clever novel. It is definitely an interesting story and well written. Recommended for those who love a perfect crime/impossible crime story.

Overall simplicity of the murder plot won me over, and thus I'm compelled to give this book a 4 star rating.

From Back cover of the book:

When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away? As Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. When his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced. 

I am very thankful to blogadda for giving me chance to review the books by different authors. Now this is my third book from the blogadda. The first one was Bankster by Ravi Subramanian, second was Tantra by Adi and this is my third book Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino.

                                                                     

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