{"id":27042,"date":"2012-09-29T17:29:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T21:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=27042"},"modified":"2012-10-03T13:33:30","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T17:33:30","slug":"jq-magazine-book-review-salvation-of-a-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2012\/09\/29\/jq-magazine-book-review-salvation-of-a-saint\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: Book Review \u2013 \u2018Salvation of a Saint\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

“The detectives in ‘Salvation’ are in constant motion, interrogating suspects, racking their brains for a break in the case. Insomniacs, they observe, question and theorize with an obsessive resolve, as good fictional crime detectives are apt to do.” (St. Martin’s Press)<\/p><\/div>\n

By\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Sharona Moskowitz<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(<\/strong>Fukuoka-ken<\/strong><\/em><\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a02000-01) for\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>JQ<\/strong>\u00a0magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(Click image for an exclusive sample from the audiobook)<\/em><\/p>\n

With more twists and turns than a mountain route through the Japanese Alps, Keigo Higashino\u2019s latest murder mystery Salvation of a Saint<\/a><\/em> is a seamless, well-constructed suspense novel with all the elements of a classic murder mystery, though he adds considerable fizz to the formula with a few unconventional characters and a very unlikely murder technique.<\/p>\n

Yoshitaka is the unfortunate victim, poisoned early on in the story by arsenic laced coffee which he drinks with tepid oblivion. Despite being offed so soon, throughout the novel we learn quite a bit about him as his character is constructed in fragments that piece together to tell the story of his life.<\/p>\n

And what an unsavory fellow indeed.<\/p>\n

Narcissistic, duplicitous and with a chauvinistic tendency to view women solely in terms of their reproductive potential, Yoshitaka is not terribly likeable, to put it mildly. During the time of his murder he was in the process of leaving his wife Ayane because of her inability to bear him a child, a fact which he states openly with unabashed grandiosity. He was also, conveniently for the plot, in the midst of an affair with Ayane\u2019s trusted confidant and apprentice Hiromi.<\/p>\n

So whodunit? Was it a crime of passion committed by one of Yoshitaka\u2019s jilted lovers past or present? Perhaps a jealous colleague? Or were Ayane and Hiromi secretly in cahoots?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The head detective assigned to the case, Kusanagi, and his cohort, Utsumi, lean towards Ayane as the prime suspect, though Kusanagi\u2019s growing attraction toward her makes it difficult for him to remain unbiased. The bigger complicating factor in solving the mystery is the fact that Ayane was in Hokkaido hundreds of miles away during the time of Yoshitaka\u2019s murder. Neither one a scientist, the two detectives are left to wonder about the physical possibility of a long distance poisoning.<\/p>\n

Enter Yukawa, aka Detective Galileo. He tries to crack the impossible mystery of the arsenic laced coffee with his professor\u2019s mind and scientist\u2019s method. The conclusion is surprising.<\/p>\n

Luckily, Higashino\u2019s science is not particularly esoteric, and his story is riddled with hints and clues which render the reader something of an armchair detective.<\/p>\n

The detectives in Salvation<\/em> are in constant motion, interrogating suspects, racking their brains for a break in the case, and even watering Ayane\u2019s plants while she\u2019s away. Insomniacs, they observe, question and theorize with an obsessive resolve, as good fictional crime detectives are apt to do.<\/p>\n

The novel takes place in Tokyo, though aside from the occasional neighborhood namedropping you\u2019d never know it. The writing is fresh and modern, sometimes bordering on the generic, which ultimately gives Higashino\u2019s work a universal appeal. At one point, the male senior detective Kusanagi tells the female Utsumi that in working together, they are equals; gender and age do not matter (does this really take place in Japan?). Yoshitaka\u2019s preference for coffee as opposed to tea seems another deliberately modern detail.<\/p>\n

The characters in Salvation of a Saint<\/em> are not always what they appear to be and the seemingly simple turns out to be much more complex and murky than the reader could have guessed. Higashino clearly knows what he is doing and he does it well\u2014Salvation of a Saint <\/em>is compulsively readable.<\/p>\n

Salvation of a Saint is available in North America Oct. 2. For more information, click here<\/a>.\u00a0For an exclusive sample of the audiobook, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sharona Moskowitz\u00a0(Fukuoka-ken,\u00a02000-01) for\u00a0JQ\u00a0magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. (Click image for an exclusive sample from the audiobook) With more twists and turns than a mountain route through the Japanese Alps, Keigo Higashino\u2019s latest murder mystery Salvation of a Saint is a seamless, well-constructed suspense novel with all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,40,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-books","category-jq-magazine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-72a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27042"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27193,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27042\/revisions\/27193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}