Book Review: Under the Skin by Michael Faber.Interview: Kathryn Stockett ( author of The Help).Book Review: Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy.Book Review: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa.

Book Review: Daddy's Little Girls by Mary Higgins Clark.Verdict: Quirky, surprising and rewarding.įollow The Book Whisperer on Twitter My Tweets Are you looking for something? Search for: authors & genres authors & genres Top Posts – who’s looking at what? And then, just as I’d relaxed again, I was left staring at an ending that made my mouth go into this shape…. However, not long after I was rewarded with an almighty wollop at the end that I didn’t see coming. While this was a great way to help the reader unravel what happened, I have to admit that about ¾ of the way through the book I started to become a little bored with the perpetual cat-and-mouse game between Yukawa and Ishigami: I remember sighing and uttering “get on with it” at one point.

What follows is clash of the geniuses: not in an action-packed, race-against-time way, but more like a battle of brains over a quiet game of chess. On the case of the body dumped in an oil drum by the river is Tokyo Detective Kusangi who vents his frustrations about the case to friend Yukawa who happens to be a genius physician and whom knew Ishigami at University. Within pages, said ex-husband is dead and entering from stage left is strange nextdoor neighbour Ishigami, who is a genius mathemetician with rather a large crush on Ysasuko. The story is centred around Yasuko, a single mum who works in a lunch-box shop and whos unsavoury ex-husband tries to worm his way back into her life. The killing takes place in the first few pages of the book and we all know straight away who did it: what happens immediately afterwards is what keeps the reader on their toes. There is a murder but no blood and gutts, a crime but no evidence. The Devotion of Suspect X is a clever crime book. I have read several novels by Japanese authors over the years and they have all had similar styles in that they have been sparsely written with barely a word wasted, yet they have all packed an almighty punch (without even trying it somehow seems). What a strange yet strangely appealing book from this Japanese author, Keigo Higashino.

The devotion of suspect