This is a novel about a murder, or two, or three or more. But who killed the first person? This remains unsolved for years. A kind of justice can be said to have been meted out to the murderer but he was not brought to book.
The perpetrator apart, the book can be judged excellent and free of any crime of bad plot or bad style. The style is not fancy yet crisply works to keep you reading. If you put the book down, it will haunt you until you reach out for it again and allow yourself to be drawn into a complex world - the world of Japan when its economy took a bad beating.
The story basically follows the lives and crimes or times of two people: a boy and a girl as they grow from school days to adulthood. And yet you will not read of them meeting each other!
Are they co-conspirators? Does anything at all link them to the dreadful crimes?
They are pursued by a dogged detective, well past the freshness of the first crime. But even he is not overwhelmingly central.
Then around what does the plot revolve?
This amazing saga will take you through the ins and outs of many industries effortlessly. You will learn about computer games, the financial sectors, of eatery business and real estate and so many other walks of life before you emerge at the last page. Yet you will never feel bored.
Peopled with a host of diverse characters the story never leaves you feeling confused about them. That which will baffle you is something else and I leave it to you to find out.
A deep dark tale of vengefulness unleashed by one man’s dastardly behaviour, Journey Under The Midnight Sun will leave you gasping for more from the pen of Keigo Higashino.
Many of his novels have been filmed or made into dramas but the renderings of this one left me cold.
The book, on the other hand, is a gem.