Keigo Higashino, the Novelist Who Defined Japan’s Sense of Mystery, Dies at 68

Keigo Higashino’s bestselling 2005 mystery “The Devotion of Suspect X,” like so many thrillers, opens with a murder. The novel, as fits the genre, also has a savant detective — nicknamed Detective Galileo, who became the lead in a series of Higashino’s novels — and its plot twists as the police investigate who committed the murder.But right from the opening chapter, the reader knows —with no ambiguity — who committed the murder, and how. The story, and the mystery, is how the police will solve it, and how the culprit got away with it.In the hands of a lesser writer, answering the core question of a “whodunit” in the opening pages would make for a flat, uninteresting book. But Mr. Higashino, who died of colorectal cancer on July 23 at age 68, was no ordinary thriller writer. “The Devotion of Suspect X,” like so many of his novels, is fun and accessible, but also sharp, brilliant, and at times devastating; and even if you are a devotee of the genre, he is one of the few writers who can deliver a twist late in a book that isn’t just satisfying but so surprising as to provoke audible swearing.Born to a working-class Osaka family, Mr. Higashino began reading and writing mystery fiction in high school but studied electrical engineering. After graduating, he joined Nippon Denso — now Denso — as an engineer in 1981. He later married a high-school teacher. These elements would wind up in his fiction: “The Devotion of Suspect X” features a high-school teacher and a physicist, and his experience captaining Osaka Prefecture University’s archery club informed the fictional school archery club in his debut novel, “After School.” The schoolhouse locked-room mystery won the 31st Edogawa Rampo Prize in 1985, on his third submission. Though a savant of the murder-mystery format — inspired by such greats as Edogawa Rampo and Seicho Matsumoto — he entered the contest in part because of his low corporate pay.Over the following 40 years, he wrote 106 books on his own, along with many co-authored volumes, and sold more than 100 million copies of his work in Japan alone. Despite their popularity and ease of reading, his thrillers were cleverly plotted and structured, beautifully written in understated prose, and built on guilt and loyalty rather than elaborate puzzle-box conceits or contraptions.‘Malice,’ by Keigo Higashino, 1996.Around 20 of his novels have been adapted for film and television, yet he avoided publicity because he did not want to be recognized on the street. Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he donated the royalties from 100,000 reprinted copies of “The Wings of the Kirin” to disaster relief.Kodansha announced Mr. Higashino’s death on July 27, after his family held a private funeral. His family declined condolence money, flowers, and telegrams. Kodansha said it would announce details of a memorial gathering once arrangements are final. Even in death, he was a private man; and even there, his work continues to influence readers and endure.His latest novel, “Eternal Memory,” the newest Detective Galileo mystery, is scheduled for publication on August 5.

Keigo Higashino, the Novelist Who Defined Japan’s Sense of Mystery, Dies at 68

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