{"id":4707,"date":"2026-06-30T22:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2026-07-16T22:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:30:11","slug":"malice-keigo-higashino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2026\/06\/30\/malice-keigo-higashino\/","title":{"rendered":"Malice — Keigo Higashino"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This murder mystery starts with an account written by an acquaintance of the victim. It sets the scene nicely. The next chapter was written from a different point of view, just to mix things up. I was pleased as well as surprised when the rug was pulled from under me quite early on (this is a mystery story after all).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All translated Japanese fiction I have read exhibits an unusual phenomenon where characters talk about extraordinary or at least unusual things as if they are completely unremarkable. For example, a deformed baby (Oe\u2019s A Personal Matter<\/em>), or most of Murakami\u2019s 1Q84<\/em>. I don\u2019t know whether this is part of the Japanese psyche, or just the writers I have read, or their translators, or maybe just my own imagination. But anyway, I felt the same vibe in this book, even though it\u2019s much more down-to-earth. It lends an slightly disconcerting air to even the most apparently mundane events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The middle of the novel moves to more conventional murder mystery stuff, quite absorbing, with skeletons in every closet. The final reveal was not as surprising to me, even though I had missed most of the clues liberally sprinkled through the text. But it was still satisfying. I don\u2019t read that many mysteries but I enjoyed this one.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This murder mystery starts with an account written by an acquaintance of the victim. It sets the scene nicely. The next chapter was written from a different point of view, just to mix things up. I was pleased as well … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,11,280,279,63],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-books","tag-japan","tag-keigo-higashino","tag-mystery","tag-novels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4711,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions\/4711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}