"It simply makes no sense" is the perfect reason to get Detective Kyoichiro Kaga involved. He returns in internationally bestselling Keigo Higashino's accomplished The Final Curtain, the fourth installment available Stateside, following Malice, Newcomer, and A Death in Tokyo; Giles Murray adds welcome consistency for his third translation in the series.
Kaga is still at the Nihonbashi Precinct, after being demoted in Newcomer out of the main Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. But, of course, they're going to need his help when he suggests that two recent murders are likely linked. A woman's strangled body is found decomposing in a sterile apartment. A few kilometers away, an unhoused victim (also strangled--and burnt) is discovered. Even more shocking is that the double-murder case is somehow linked to Kaga's mother, who left when he was 12 and died alone a decade ago. Her backstory proves especially poignant, revealing the pressures of womanhood and motherhood in a rigidly gendered society. Through a labyrinth populated with unnamed corpses, multiple identities, missing parents, and decades lost, Kaga will "construct an edifice called the truth."
Higashino's signature leisurely pace provides the opportunity to include small details (roasted green tea, the washing-of-the-bridge festival, train timetables) that enhance and solidify his scenes. Loyal Kaga groupies will appreciate recurring characters, including Shuhei Matsumiya, Kaga's cousin who's also a homicide detective, and with whom Kaga shares a gently competitive, always familial bond. While Higashino's impressive plotting is anything but rushed, readers will be turning the pages eagerly as he nimbly ensures with each layer-by-layer reveal how everything, of course, makes perfect sense. --Terry Hong