In The Final Curtain I struggled with the Japanese names and found the resolution of the mystery to be among the most tedious of an novel I have finished. Perhaps, and probably, the story reads better in the original Japanese.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

I was thrilled to find the newest Higashino translation on Netgalley. I'm a big fan of the cerebral mysteries that Higashino writes and this one was no exception.

This case covers an astonishing time span and has some personal stakes for Detective Kaga as well. I really loved following the branching investigation as police teams doggedly tracked down every lead and pieced together this convoluted story. Higashino really conveys the minutiae of police work without bogging down the narrative and making <i>it</i> boring in return. It's a style of mystery reminiscent of Agatha Christie, that seems to have gone out of vogue in the western countries. (Here, the genre seems to have branched into bland cozies and grim, violent thrillers, neither of which is really to my taste.)

I dearly hope Macmillan continues to translate Higashino's backlist. I can't wait to read more.

I loved Malice so I was thrilled to read The Final Curtain. Higashino has crafted a complex mystery with a focus on its well-developed characters. The plot is intricate and there are many surprises as you follow along with the detailed police investigation. This novel has a slower pace which allows you to get to know the characters and it was interesting to learn about their backstories. I thought the story was emotional and I found myself tearing up in several spots. If you enjoy a well-crafted police procedural with rich characterization, you won't want to miss this one when it comes out on December 12, 2023.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

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Kaigo Higashino is one of my favorite authors, so when I got the chance to read "The Final Curtain," I was elated!

This is an author that never lets me down.

Kyoichiro Kaga, a detective for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, is handling a new case: a woman was found murdered inside a small apartment. Kaga can't help but notice that there is a connection between the murder and the death of his mother a few years back.

In this story, we will learn more about Kaga, his past relationships, and his family.

Something that came as a surprise is that Mr. Higashino gives the main suspect a complete backstory, which made for an amazing read.

This is a must for mystery thriller fans.

A great book cover to cover.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Final Curtain.

I've been reading this mystery series for some time now so I was pleased my request was approved.

I'm sorry to find out this was the final book in the series, though Detective Kaga is written as a supporting character rather than the lead.

The mystery was a good one, interesting with many twists and turns, but it was hard to follow, namely the names of the characters.

I know when you read a book from an international author, local names are hard to follow and to remember who is who.

I didn't understand the gist of the mystery until the end when the suspect's flashbacks explain what happened.

I also liked how this mystery tied into Kaga's past and his unresolved feelings and relationship with his mother, tying up that loose thread as well.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC In exchange for an honest review!

The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino is the final book in an amazing mystery series. The story revolves around Detective Kaga, who has to deal with a personal mystery in this book. Years ago, his mother ran away from home without any explanation and completely disappeared. Now that she is dead, a surprising connection pops up between her and a dead body that Kaga is investigating. What is the link between his personal life and his newest case?

Here is an intriguing excerpt from Chapter 1, which is a flashback:

"“She’s just split up with her husband and she has no other family. She’s here in Sendai because she once came here on vacation and she thought it was pretty, a nice place to live. She’s very good-natured, very together. Quite a looker too. She has experience working in the nightclub scene. That’s why I thought she might be a good fit for your bar.”
The lady was thirty-six, Yasuyo’s friend went on to say, but she looked younger.
No harm in meeting her, thought Yasuyo Miyamoto."

Overall, The Final Curtain is the final book in an impressive mystery series that can compete with the classics! I think that anyone who read Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie's books should pick up this author. In the synopsis, it says that this is the final book in the Detective Kaga series, which makes me so sad. I sincerely hope that is not true. Or if that is true, I hope that the author keeps writing tons of mysteries starring other detectives. And I hope that St. Martin's Press keeps translating these books into English. Anytime I hear that there is a new book out, I add it to my TBR list right away! If you're intrigued by the excerpt above or if you're a fan of mysteries in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in December!

Two mysteries in one. I loved getting to see deeper into the character of Kyoichiro Kaga. I really love the persistence and the way he is willing to chase down so many blind alleys to get to the truth. His hard work always pays off. A lesson to us all. Very engaging story, a real page turner. I am so impressed with Keigo Higashino. I will read absolutely anything he writes. I'm so glad he is being recognized here in the US at last.

I really enjoy all of Higashino's novels. I've worked through all of the ones available in translation. His mysteries are unique, at least to a Western reader. The reader often knows more than the investigators. And The Final Curtain is no different.
Is it Columbo-esque? Yes, in a way. But how the detective figures out the crime(s) is fascinating. There's real care given to the characters and the plot. When a mystery isn't entirely 'who dunnit' you need to, as a reader, be invested in the characters a little more. The mystery here is still driving the plot, but we gain a lot of insight into Kaga's past in a way that feels natural. Yes, a crime has occurred that has to do with a family member, but it's more about unraveling the mystery of Kaga's youth, and why his mother left him.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves mysteries but also anyone who loves great character development and characters who feel 'real'.

Japanese police (even in translation) procedurals are perhaps something of an acquired taste, but I enjoy them. The Japanese criminal justice system is an interesting combination of the the model found in the English-speaking world (as installed by MacArthur during the postwar occupation) and Japan’s own strong hierarchical traditions. There are a number of popular authors in this field, and I’ve read most of them, but Higashino easily the best-loved, as shone by his repeated best-seller status, his many awards, and the numerous films and television series based on his work.

Besides several standalone novels, he has done two series, the more recent of which features Detective Kyoichiro Kaga, who, in this fourth outing (published in Japan in 2013 and due to be released in the U.S. in December), has finally risen from Sergeant to Inspector. Two books ago, he had left the Tokyo Met’s homicide division for various reasons (partly personal, partly because he tends to piss off his superiors) and had moved to the ancient mercantile Nihonbashi district of the city. (“Bashi” means “bridge,” and the Nihonbashi River has a lot of them, which will become key to the story.) In the last episode, _A Death in Tokyo,_ Kaga teamed up to solve the crime with his younger first cousin, Mitsumiya, who was also a detective, and that gave the author the chance to have Kaga instruct the younger man (and the reader) about what seemed to be going on and what he thought about it. The two are working together again, but they have as much common family history to deal with time as they do a coupe of very puzzling murders.

Higashino sometimes seems to wander a bit in the opening phases of a novels, but he knows exactly what he’s going and disparate plot threads will come together before long. Kaga’s farther, as it happens, was also a cop and his mother abandoned her family when Kaga was young. He always had black feelings about that, and not much interest in his mother’s later life, but but changed some after her lonely death a few years before. Maybe it wasn’t really all her fault? Moreover, Mom’s life seems to tie into the death of a middle-aged woman she probably didn’t know, but the two of them had other people in common. The dead woman had come up from Shiga, near Osaka, to visit Hitomi Asai, a woman she had known in junior high school decades before, who became a stage actress and then a noted theatrical director. Hitomi was connected to a murdered woman found in an abandoned apartment, who had also been a student with them back in Shiga. And the man who owned the apartment has disappeared. And Kaga’s late mother connects to several of them.

Got all that? Yes, it’s a complicated plot, and you’ll have to pay attention to the clues -- some of which the police *know* are clues, and some of which Kaga only has his suspicions about, simply because his brain seems to work differently from most people’s. So you’ll have to take your time reading this one, and perhaps refer back to the helpful cast of characters if you have trouble sorting out Japanese names. Nevertheless, it’s another highly satisfying example of Higashino’s narrative skills.

Higashino always makes me think just a little bit more than the average mystery. This is billed as the final book in the Kaga series, but I don’t know that you need to know anything about the other books. I certainly didn’t remember anything about him, except that Detective Kaga acts as Higoshino’s Holmes, Spade, or anyone else with an almost uncanny ability to delve inside the mysteries of a case. At any rate, this one opens with a story between a female club owner, a woman seeking employment as a hostess, and a regular customer, and the quiet relationships that happen, until the woman is one day found dead, decades later. It touches off a bizarre chain of connections that become evident later. The story then jumps to the Tokyo police interviewing the parents of a Michiko Oshitani, a woman who was found dead in a stranger’s Tokyo apartment. She was recently visiting a high school friend, Hiromi Asai, who was opening a play at a prestigious playhouse. As the connections pile up, investigating detective Matsumiya finds himself consulting his cousin Kaga.

There’s a lot of twists and turns to this story, and the cast of characters is extensive. There is a list in the beginning, which I promptly forgot in my Kindle edition. Had I a papercopy, I would definitely had put a sticky-note there. Yet characterization shone. Despite the large cast, I still felt like I had a sense of each of them.

What struck me, as the police quite tirelessly worked every angle of this murder case, is how much work they were putting into it, all these people they were interviewing and the connections they were finding. When Matsumiya is suspicious that the burned body of a homeless person is somehow connected, it seems so far-fetched for coincidences–then I remembered this is Japan we are talking about.

You know, the country with a 0.25 murder rate per 100,000 people. America? Oh, America is cruising along at 6.52 murders per 100,000. Forget moving fast; life’s pretty disposable around here. It’s hard to conceive of what that would be like as a police officer, really. I mean, no wonder the Toyko detectives have time to schlepp back and forth to Michiko’s home and interview childhood friends. No wonder they care about the death of a homeless person. It’s weird, though, because it means I have to set aside some of the tropes I have as an American.

So, stretchy-stretchy with crime aside, the Japanese culture was not quite as prominent an angle, at least in setting (I remember the bar-club of Silent Parade and the shopping district of Newcomer), though it was very important culturally. This translation was done by Giles Murray, who is not my preferred translator of the two I’ve read so far. There are definitely a few awkward word choices, particularly when it comes to colloquialisms used in dialogue (Telling someone they are going to be late: “Kaga gave a wry grin. ‘Time to stop talking twaddle and get your skates on. Unless you want to miss your train that is.'”) But on the whole it feels much smoother than Silent Parade.

This was written in 2013 and translated this year, so there are some cultural/time gaps. It’s main cultural reference ends up being the Japanese earthquake/tsunami of 2011. Highly recommended if you are in the mood for an absorbing mystery–not thriller, but police procedural mystery. These days, that’s harder and harder to find.

The plot and mystery were interesting and engaging, however I felt that there were too many characters in the story. It was hard to keep track of who was who, and there were times when characters were referred to using different names / nick names which made it even more confusing.
I enjoyed the back story and the personalities of the characters, but overall I would have enjoyed the story a lot more if there had been less characters and if the author had used the same name consistently when referring to a character.

The Final Curtain is a mystery by Keigo Higashino. Were the mysterious deaths of two seemingly unrelated people actually related? If so, how? At the center is a famous play director and a police investigator. What do they have in common?

I was excited to get an opportunity to read this book. Stepping out of my normal genre of books, I wanted to give this book a try and boy I was on the edge of my seat every bit of the way. I will say there were many characters to keep up with. There are also twists and turns you do not see coming. Additionally, reading about the detective’s background made it all come together. Great execution! I would definitely read another book by this author.

I eagerly await any works from the author. Have been a big fan for a while.

The new mystery does not disappoint. The plot is complex, the pacing is not too fast and the twists and turns are mostly unexpected. Another great police procedural from the master of the genre. A must-read

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read the latest mystery by Keigo Higashino as I have read and loved all his books which have been translated into English. I admire the wonderful job the translator did, well beyond just translating words, but also using English idioms and other techniques, allowing readers to fully appreciate the book. This was a complex mystery with many characters, both new and recurring. An added bonus was getting to know more about the background of Detective Kaga, and, as usual, to see how clever he is at solving mysteries and seeing connections between cases. It was fascinating to see an investigation where the most minor clues could be followed up by the detectives. This book could be read on its own, but the entire series is so great that one will want to read them all. I highly recommend this book as well as the author's other ones.

Omg, I have read one other in this series by Higashino and had to read more so when I saw this one, I jumped on it. The Final Curtain is a very intriguing and engrossing police procedurals that I have read. This is a slower paced thriller that has readers trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together. There are several different directions that the author takes you in and each one will pull you in further. The characters are the main feature and bring this mystery together in a way that you will not see coming. Once the pieces unravel and the truth is out, you will be able to breath a sigh of relief. I certainly had no idea where the story was going to take me but it was one hell of a ride.



5+++ out of 5



Thank you to NetGalley as well as the author/publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Maybe I should begin with this one. If you are looking for a light mystery/thriller book, I think you should begin with this one. The case in this book isnt that brutal but you have to give attention for every details in the book so you can guess how the plot twist is.... I ENJOY WITH EVERY DETAILS HOW DETECTIVE KAGA SOLVED THE CASE!

Keigo wrote it in a good writing style (TRUST ME), so you dont have to worry to feel bored in the middle of the book and the translation is the chef kiss.

Thanks NetGalley provided me with this ARC!!

I loved this novel. Not only was it a complicated puzzle, equal parts exciting and emotional, but also a terrific cultural experience into the modern Japanese psyche. A thrilling read, and I happily await the next one!

Really enjoyed hearing an update on what Detective Kaga is up to. As a bonus, this story gets into some of his personal life and family history, which I enjoyed as this is the fourth book featuring him so I've gotten attached to his character.

This mystery unfolded in so many directions at once. I sadly wasn't able to do as much uninterrupted reading as I would have liked, so sometimes I had to remind myself of what had been discovered/what all the potential connections were. But the intricacy of the plot and the layers of the mystery were masterfully constructed. My need for reminders had more to do with lack of sleep and oh so many interruptions. I really did not anticipate how the mystery would resolve and enjoyed the final reveal and how it tied up a number of stories and loose ends beautifully.

Such a good read - I might re-read it when I have a chance of less interruptions!

The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino is a gripping murder mystery that centers around the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga's mother and the recent murder of Michiko Oshitani in Tokyo. As the police investigate Oshitani's murder, they discover a connection to the case of Detective Kaga's missing mother. Higashino weaves together a complex plot full of twists and turns that keeps readers on the edge of their seats until the very end. The characters are well-crafted and the pacing is slow yet action-packed, allowing for a deep exploration of the characters and their motivations. The writing is superb, with vivid descriptions that transport readers to the streets of Tokyo and add to the overall tension and atmosphere of the story.
Overall, The Final Curtain is a masterfully crafted police procedural that will keep readers guessing until the very end, and is a must-read for fans of the genre.