Review: Salvation of a Saint

Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Keigo Higashino’s “The Devotion of Suspect X” on a recommendation from a friend sometime back and really liked. Since then, I read “Malice” and now “Salvation of a Saint”. The strength is in the depth of the story and the characters. They are all great crime novels with no fluff or unnecessary drama.

Salvation of a Saint is another great story if you like crime/mysteries. It is not as crisply written as the other two books mentioned above, but a very good read nevertheless.

Yoshitaka and his wife Ayane are about to separate from their marriage. As Ayane is visiting her parents, Yoshitaka dies mysteriously – as a result of drinking coffee laced with poison. Yoshitaka has not been exactly faithful, and based on that it seems that his wife has the strongest motive to kill him, but she is away during that period. Ayane’s work colleague Hiromi is the last to have seen Yoshitaka.

Police detective Kusanagi and his assistant Utsumi investigate the case. It is puzzling as it is unclear where the poison came from. Utsumi turns to Professor Yukawa for help. It seems to be the perfect crime – with no evidence to lead anywhere.

The reasoning of the police and Professor Yukawa is a delight to read, as they persevere with testing one hypothesis after the other. In many ways, I suppose this is how great mysteries are really solved – one step at a time.


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