Review: Newcomer (2018) by Keigo Higashino

Keigo Higashino's Newcomer is the sorbet after my heavy main course of noir and hardboiled. It made for a fun half-day read. Newcomer is the second Detective Kyochiro Kaga story and follows on the events of Malice.

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Mineko Mitsui, a divorced woman living alone is found murdered. Mitsui was a newcomer to the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Detective Kaga, first on the scene and only recently transferred to the Nihonbashi precinct where he is also a newcomer. Though the case is turned over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and Kaga is but a "lowly local detective" he nevertheless proceeds with his unconventional investigative techniques.

Kaga makes me think of a combination of Columbo and Sherlock Holmes. Columbo because of his habit of showing up to ask just one more question. He is like Sherlock Holmes because he doesn't just see,  he observes. People underestimate Kaga at their peril. His seemingly aimless fascination with things all prove to have relevance. The organization of the book is clever. Kago traces each piece of evidence found in the murdered woman's apartment but it is done so in the form of stories about the lives of the merchants the dead woman visited. Kago reveals family secrets in what amounts to several mini–mysteries within the larger mystery of who murdered Mineko Mitsui. In one, perhaps two, of the mini stories, the emotions of the reader are shamelessly manipulated but it is done so entertainingly that you don't care. In some ways I also thought of Kaga as kind of a guardian angel and he gently guides people to realization that things might not be what they thought. You'll probably have a good idea whodunit though perhaps not why before the end but you don't really care because it is the journey and not the destination.

I will say that by end of the novel I had a real craving for Japanese rice crackers and pastries. And the author made this reader feel like he would like to visit the streets and shops with Kaga.

I found this a quick but satisfying read and I look forward to the next in the series.