Newcomer – Yet another Cleverly Plotted and Emotionally Involving Keigo Higashino Mystery

“Aren’t you supposed to be investigating her murder, Detective?”

“Oh, I am investigating the murder; of course I am. But my job as a detective should go beyond that. People who’ve been traumatized by a crime are victims, too. Finding ways to comfort them is also part of my job.”

I love reading Keigo Higashino mysteries from the time I first read The Devotion of Suspect X. His simple, to-the-point prose (translated by Alexander O. Smith or Giles Murray), his attention to details, the way he generates deeper questions out of seemingly insignificant actions, and his fly-on-the-wall observations of the idiosyncrasies of Japanese culture and society are all my favorite aspects in the tales of mystery master. Moreover, there’s unparalleled humanist quotient in his novels which most of the procedural authors drop off in an effort to construct a ‘cerebral’ mystery. Higashino’s whodunits or howdunits does possess an inscrutable crime and an ever-deepening conundrum at its center, but what I eventually take away from his tales are the moments of grace and humane gestures which gives off the feeling that an order is restored and the chaos of reality temporarily averted. 

Newcomer is the eighth novel in his Detective Kyoichiro Kaga series (published under the title ‘Shinzanmono’ in 2009). But it’s only the second Kaga series novel to be translated to English (in November 2018 by Giles Murray), following Malice. Kaga is an eccentric sleuth who despite his uncharacteristic clothing sense (a blue short-sleeved shirt over a t-shirt) is good at tracking down the truth using his Holmesian skills. While his methods are laser-focused, Kaga is also very good at discerning people’s emotions. In Newcomer, Kaga is recently transferred to the Nihonbashi precinct, a district in Tokyo where old and new Japanese culture intersects. The story sets in motion when another newcomer to the district is murdered in her apartment (strangled to death). Forty-five year old Mineko Mitsui, a divorcee living by herself, is the murder victim. Teamed with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, Kaga scrutinizes every aspect of the woman’s lives, starting with the people she met or called on the day of her murder to the objects found in her small apartment.

Newcomer is structured in the form of (eight) intricately connected vignettes, each answering the different strange aspects in the case and eventually points to the perpetrator. Kaga’s investigation first unfolds by him tracing the truth behind little discrepancies surrounding the case. An insurance agent’s lie, a man who has supposedly the last person to visit Mineko, takes Kaga to a rice-cracker shop run by an ailing old lady and her caring motherless granddaughter. A wasabi-spiked sweet pastry found in Mineko’s apartment brings Kaga to investigate the restaurant’s owner. Most of the vignettes are seemingly unrelated to the central mystery of Mineko’s killing. Yet by solving these mysteries, Kaga gets to know the area (like us readers). The wit and humanity of all these shop owners, apprentices, and clerks whom Kaga repeatedly investigates (or nags) keeps us thoroughly hooked, even though it is only in the second-half of the novel, Mineko’s recent past and possible motives for her murder are explored. And in each episode, Kaga comes off as the guardian angel bearing good news. Since the Japanese family dynamics revolve around some unwritten rules of etiquette (where lot of things are left unspoken), the truth Kaga unearths comforts these disparate set of people.

Few of the episodes (especially towards the end) could be accused of being too sentimental. But most of these stories of failed relationship, unexpressed love, and sacrifices carry the scope of mystery/crime novels beyond gory details and last-minute twists. At its core, Newcomer is a microcosmic as well as a dramatic examination of the Japanese family dynamics, the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of it. Adding to the fun is the author’s portrayal of the uniqueness of Nihonbashi district (it’s social and cultural relevance).Kaga’s impressive observational skill generates one intriguing small mystery after another. And every time we think of a loose-end, Higashino comes back and ties it all neatly (up until the last page). Some of the answers to the mysteries in Higashino’s novels may seem mundane or too simple (considering the built-up). But the author’s stories are never boring and offers good emotional payoff (especially for a procedural about solving crimes).