A multi-level drama with plenty of backstory; this book reminded me of Agatha Christie in some parts. The story slowly blossoms as you paint in more of the picture as the omniscient reader. Classic twist at the end unravels all the plot twists and makes everything else come together in hindsight. I plan to make Higashino one of my go-to authors for mystery.

VERDICT: Dead body, Tokyo landmark, thrilling puzzle: dive into a captivating mystery packed with cultural insights and unexpected twists, where the author cleverly leads you astray.

I don’t know about you, but if I don’t take any notes after reading a book, I tend to forget it faster than when I make the effort of writing. The mere fact of putting things on paper helps my memory, even if I don’t go back to read my review, usually.

Proof of the pudding is with A Death in Tokyo. I have really enjoyed several previous books by this author. I received this one for review (thank you Netgalley) back in 2022, but never took the time to write my review.
And so, two years later, while reading The Final Curtain (#4 in the series), I realized I only had vague recollections of #3!
As it was available as audio through my public library, I decided to listen to it this time. It was actually a great re-read experience. Though scary at the same time, as it took me a very long time in the book to recollect the plot.


Some listeners didn’t appreciate the narrator too much, but I thought he was good. I think he conveyed well the different personalities and changes of ambiance with his tones, including female characters.

One evening, a man is found dead on the Nihonbashi Bridge. That same night, a young man is injured in a car accident while attempting to flee from the police. Found on him is the wallet of the murdered man. What’s the connection? Is the thief the murderer? Why?

While reviewing recently The Informer, by Akimitsu Tagaki, I highlighted an element I found in common with Higashino’s writing. This aspect shows perfectly in A Death In Tokyo: as you follow the plot, you end up with the real issue, which you could never have guessed from the beginning of the book.
It feels like visiting a city you think you know, but walking through back alleys, you end up in a place you never suspected existed in that city.

Obviously, this makes for great suspense, and also the great feeling for the reader to feel he/she was smartly tricked by the author!

I like Detective Kaga’s personality and way of working. He is very human, but also very attentive to details, and persevering to the point of stubbornness until all the dots connect, even though his outside look doesn’t reveal his greatness – a Japanese Columbo.

I liked also discovering a few elements related to Japanese culture: some common though illegal practices in factories; shrines; origami cranes for memorial services and prayers for the deceased; the eye-sore expressway right above the beautiful 1911 Nihonbashi Bridge.

It was interesting seeing again the theme of bullying, as I have already encountered n other Japanese novels (check for instance my review of Confessions, by Kanae Minato) – definitely a major social issue in modern Japan, both at school and in the work place.

3.8 Stars
One Liner: A good mystery

A mythical Japanese beast, Kirkin, stands guard over the bridge in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. A night patrolling officer finds a man staggering on the bridge only to realize he is not drunk but seriously injured and stabbed in the chest.
The Homicide team jumps into action and soon finds a young man, Yashima, injured in an accident. He has the dead man’s wallet and becomes the prime suspect. Since he was in no position to speak, the detectives began hunting for clues.
Detective Kyoichiro Kaga is assigned to the district’s team to aid with the investigation. And thus begins the process of looking for clues and connecting the dots, no matter how unlikely they seem. A picture is forming, but can Kaga get enough evidence to find the killer?
The story comes in the third-person POV of multiple characters.

My Thoughts:
I enjoyed Malice and Devotion of Suspect X by the author. So when this book came up on NetGalley last year, I grabbed it right away. As you can see, it took me more than a year to get to it, and only because the next and last in the series is also on my list.
The book begins with the list of primary characters and their roles. This makes it easy to mark the characters and follow them throughout the story.
The narration picks up pace over time and maintains a steady tempo. Detective Kaga is focused on aspects others don’t bother with, and this gives him the results. He is partnered with his cousin, and it’s interesting to see the dynamics between them.
Though it is a police procedural, it feels more like a puzzle where it is important to know how to fit them correctly to make sense of the final picture.
The story is set around 2010 (the original version was released in Mar 2011) in Tokyo and deals with social issues as a part of the narrative. Themes like recession, job uncertainties, scapegoating, dysfunctional families, monetary concerns, media-vulturism, etc., are used without much social commentary.
Being a Japanese book, we also get glimpses into the native culture, religious practices, customs, etc. These make the plot more engaging.
The reveal reads more like a report, which makes the whole thing sound almost distanced and unemotional. However, the ending is quite emotional and well done. I like where the focus is. It leaves the reader with something to think about.

To summarize, A Death in Tokyo is a taut mystery despite a few tried and tested tropes found in the genre. I wouldn’t say I liked it as much as Malice, but Kaga’s brain works well, so no complaints!
Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s (Minotaur Books), for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Another solid police procedural featuring Inspector Kaga. When a middle-aged businessman is found murdered on a bridge by a famous statue, Kaga is one of the team of investigators. The mystery has themes of honesty, responsibility and family as well as paper cranes and sacred sites, and, of course, Tokyo.

I read this book quite awhile ago and somehow didn't share my feedback with you. I enjoyed reading this book. I like police procedurals and this is one from Japan. The detective follows one lead after another until he gets to the truth. I have to admit I was a little surprised who the murderer turned out to be. I would like to read other books in this series.

I really enjoyed this and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have read it! What a wonderful book!

A Death in Tokyo is the 9th outing for detective Kyoichiro Kaga (the third translated into English) written by Keigo Higashino. Released 13th Dec 2022 by Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 368 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in fourth quarter 2023 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats; it makes searching in the text much easier (for character names, for example).

This is a brilliantly written and unusually well translated modern procedural with a contemplative and intelligent protagonist, an ensemble cast, and an exceptionally clever and well plotted puzzle. The story is mostly character driven and the characters are three dimensional and interestingly well rounded. It's a touch more cerebral than many modern procedurals and is a dignified successor to Christie or Horowitz.

The translation work by Giles Murray is seamless, and never intrusive, and there's no wonky or difficult scansion. It doesn't read like literature in translation, which is a huge bonus.

With several volumes translated into English at this point (this is the penultimate book in the series), it would make an excellent choice for a binge or buddy read. The author is talented enough to provide the necessary backstory, so it works well as a standalone. All the books are wonderfully written with compelling and complex storylines, so reading them in order is recommended, but not absolutely necessary. I found the most difficult part of the book to be the character names, which are kept true to the original. The author/publisher have included a dramatis personae list at the beginning of the book which I found quite useful.

Five stars. Very very well written.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This book kept me on my toes. I really liked the way this author wrote, it kept me interested and waiting for the next sentence. I couldn't read this fast enough!

I think a lot of people are going to enjoy reading about the detective trying to find a killer but it really hooked me with the characters backgrounds and how they pushed the story along.

I would recommend this and I look forward to reading more of this author.

A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino is a gritty Japanese police procedural. This mystery is well written and brings the streets of Japan to life. Great book overall. Readers of this genre will love this book. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

For me there is always a sense of familiarity when reading this series, and in this novel we follow Kaga and his cousin, who is also a detective, Matsumiya as they work a case where they can't figure out the motive behind the murder and the suspect is in a coma.

Because of Kaga and Matsumiya being cousins, there was no going through the process of two detectives getting to know each other. It's just the two of them knowing each other's everything because of they're family, being used to personalities and temperaments. And the few moments of mild conflict between them, was very fitting family, such as the minor subplot about Kaga procrastinating on planning the remembrance for his father, who passed two years prior.

Another one of the perspectives we follow is Yuto, the son of the victim, and how his world has shifted now that it's just him, his mother, and his sister. His father and him hadn't had a very good relationship leading up to his death, and so there's a lot of anger he toward him as a part of the grieving process. And further anger toward him when information is dug up during the investigation that may be a motive for the suspect.

There's also the perspective of the suspect's girlfriend, Kaori, who denies any of the possibilities that her boyfriend could ever do such a thing. Not only is she all alone in this area after moving there with Fuyuki years earlier, but had already been down on her luck, that makes it all the more harder to process what is happening and the accusations against him.

How all these perspectives intersect as the story goes, details of the story and crime pieced together bit by bit works so well. Every small detail, while not part of the bigger picture, does have its placed to be found along the way. Even if it's not what their first assumption was for it, Kaga and Matsumiya find where it belongs to close a case their higher-ups dismissed as open and shut prior to their investigation.




Trigger warnings for self-harm/suicide attempt, drowning.

I do truly enjoy reading a Keigo Higashino mystery because I know I am in for a slow-paced mystery that gives me a slice of life in Tokyo while also delivering a good puzzle. This didn't disappoint.

In this installment, we have a businessman killed on a bridge and a young man in the hospital, hit by a car nearby, but found with the dead man's wallet. The style of Higashino's mysteries is always sparse. It's clean and non-emotional, but not without impact as it feels like he is pointing specifically to issues in contemporary Japan. The struggles of the young man injured in the accident and his young wife were brought to the foreground to exemplify a class of people often marginalized in Japanese society. It's a long book, and while I sometimes felt turned around or that the pace was moving too slowly, I look back and see the value in the approach. It's a series I will definitely continue reading.

I would like to thank the publisher for access to this as a digital arc, in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t mind this murder case but was confused with all the characters names and the mystery was kind of forced.

I honestly couldn’t get interested in this book. It was fairly boring for me. I couldn’t stay focused on it. I was not impressed by this book

The "Nihonbashi Bridge" murder mystery in Tokyo is the focus of the third book in the Detective Kyoichiro Kaga series by bestselling Japanese crime writer Keigo Higashino. A man is found dead beneath the statue of a mythical kirin on the bridge. At the same time, a young man named Yashima is injured in a car accident and is found with the murdered man's wallet. Detective Kaga must unravel the connection between the victim, the murderer, and Yashima while also figuring out why the victim dragged himself to the Nihonbashi Bridge. Every answer leads to more questions in this perplexing case.

In the latest installment of Keigo Higashino's Detective Kyoichiro Kaga series, readers are taken on a tightly woven journey filled with unexpected twists and turns. Despite being a conventional narrative, the story is masterfully crafted and brings to light the complexities of a crime investigation. The reserved, but determined Kaga finds himself at odds with his superior as he tries to unravel the truth behind a murder that took place beneath the statue of a mythical kirin on Nihonbashi Bridge in Tokyo.

Set in 2011, the novel provides a unique perspective on Japanese society, as Kaga's investigation leads to insights on corporate corruption, media intrusion, the stigmatization of the unemployed, and the cultural clashes between traditional beliefs and modern realities. Although some elements may feel formulaic, Higashino's understated approach makes for a taut and captivating read. Translated by Giles Murray and published by Little Brown Book Group/Abacus, this novel is a must-read for fans of psychological crime and police procedurals.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group/Abacus for the advanced reader copy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for the ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I always love reading Keigo Higashino's books. They are challenging, unpredictable, exciting, and sometimes even mind-blowing. After "Malice" and "Newcomer", "A Death in Tokyo" is the third Detective Kyoichiro Kaga adventure we can read in English though it is the 9th book in the Japanese series. It can be read as a standalone, but after reading it, one wishes there would be more books translated into English from this series.

In his detective novels, Higashino often makes unusual choices, such as giving away the murderer early in the story and setting the mystery on 'why' or 'how' the crime was committed. In this aspect, it can be said that "A Death in Tokyo" is more along the lines of traditional whodunit novels with twists starting from the beginning of the book. It reads very fast, and you can't help but like Detective Kaga a bit more. I only knocked off one star because I've read better/more challenging mysteries from Higashino, which is my own view and absolutely not something for other readers to measure the quality of this book. If you like a good detective novel, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one.

(I lost access to my ARC about halfway through the book, so part of this review is based on a finished copy.)

A man is stabbed to death in Tokyo. A suspect is found nearly immediately. But did the suspect really commit the murder?

I first read Keigo Higashino's book _Malice_ years ago and was not a huge fan. I'm glad I did not let that stop me from reading this entry in the Kaga series because _A Death in Tokyo_ was a real good mystery. It wasn't as dark as a lot of thrillers nowadays--which normally would be disappointing to me but was a welcome break, in this case.

Detective Kaga is very reminiscent of Poirot (except Kaga does not have a mustache to obsess over). At first his methods could be very frustrating, but I found myself getting used to them after awhile. Kaga does seem to stop at a lot of restaurants, which was a little distracting.

There was a "twist", of sorts, but it didn't feel like it came out of absolutely nowhere. It was a little shocking, but clues were there throughout the books. It definitely seemed to follow the formula of a classic Japanese mystery.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the eARC of this copy in exchange for an honest review.

The English version of this book was published on December 13, 2022.

2.25

I loved The Devotion of Suspect X, so I was very excited when I received an early copy of the latest Keigo Higashino translated work. Unfortunately, I struggled through this.

I really liked Detective Kaga as a character but despite being the series title he had a very small presence. Instead we jumped through several perspectives, from a variety of police officers investigating the murder to the murder victim’s teenage son to the girlfriend of the primary suspect.

Originally published in Japan in 2011, I found the most interesting part of this to be its insight into Japanese society. There is commentary on the treatment of factory workers as expendable and on facing consequences for your actions and on familial relationships.

While this was not my favorite, I have previously enjoyed books from Higashino and I liked Kyoichiro Kaga enough to give more of this series a chance.

A Death in Tokyo is the third entry in the Detective Kaga series that has been translated into English. Once again, it’s a solid, enjoyable read, with a couple of good twists. Kaga is part of a squad investigating the brutal murder of a middle-aged man. The man was stabbed but stayed alive long enough to drag himself to the famous Nihonbashi Bridge, in order to die at the foot of the statue of a kirin adorning it. Not far away, a young man in a park flees police and runs out into traffic where he is struck and seriously injured. The young man, Yashima, is carrying the murdered man’s wallet. Unfortunately, the man ends up in the hospital in a coma, unable to answer questions.

This is a police procedural. Kaga is unsatisfied with Yashima as the killer, so he keeps questioning people and walking the neighborhood where the crime occurred. He’s persistent, follows his hunches, and step by step finds the solution.

There are some decent twists to the investigation. It’s no surprise that it’s not as simple as it first seems. And I liked learning a bit about Tokyo and its shrines.

A standard Japanese mystery. I'm not sure if it's the translatio of the original text or just how the writer writes, but the prose is very stilted. It took some learning to figure out HOW to read this one, but Higashino never disappoints with his mysteries.

This is the first book in this series that I have read. It won't be the last. I enjoyed this book very much. This murder mystery set in Tokyo keeps you interested from start to finish.