Invisible Helix

October 7, 2024
Higashino’s disappointing fifth whodunit featuring Manabu Yukawa (after Silent Parade) finds the physics professor helping the Tokyo police investigate the murder of a young video producer. After Ryota Uetsuji is found floating in Tokyo Bay with a bullet in his back, Chief Inspector Kusanagi—who was friends with Yukawa in college—takes the case. He soon learns that Uetsuji was the live-in boyfriend of florist Sonoka Shimauchi, who vanished after Uetsuji died. When the couple’s neighbors report that Uetsuji abused Sonoka, she becomes the prime suspect. Then Kusanagi learns that Sonoka was friendly with children’s author Nae Matsunaga, one of whose books references Yukawa’s work. That connection leads Kusanagi to enlist Yukawa’s help in tracking Sonoka down, believing she may have gone on the run with Matsunaga. Despite the strong setup, Higashino chooses the predictable path at every turn, leaving series fans waiting in vain for a twist worthy of Yukawa’s brilliance. Here’s hoping the professor’s next outing is a return to form.

November 1, 2024
In Tokyo, Chief Inspector Kusanagi's homicide squad is investigating the murder of Ryota Uetsuji, a controlling abuser whose girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi, has disappeared. Sonoka becomes a suspect after her flight is captured on video, but the abuse she endured casts a sympathetic light. When Kusanagi learns that she's fled with her late mother's friend, Nae Matsunaga, he's off to consult Professor Manabu Yukawa (a.k.a. Detective Galileo), a renowned physics professor who has been instrumental in solving many cases. Yukawa agrees to assist in the investigation but is convinced that the women are innocent. Fortunately, Kusanagi has another lead: the mama-san of his hostess club has been visiting Sonoka and Uetsuji. Yukawa and Kusanagi believe that her interest somehow ties back to the orphanage where Sonoka's mother was raised, but late-breaking discoveries call their suspected motives into question. Here, Higashino winds an apparently straightforward domestic violence murder into a complex psychological mystery and crafts its solution from a compelling exploration of the many facets of love, loneliness, and regret. A nuanced, cerebral winner.

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December 1, 2024
Shortly after reporting her live-in boyfriend missing, an employee of a Tokyo flower shop goes missing herself in what turns into an unusually personal case for Teito University physics professor Manabu Yukawa, aka Detective Galileo. Sonoka Shimauchi's family life has always been troubled and enigmatic. Her mother, Chizuko Shimauchi, was raised in the Morning Shadows orphanage without any knowledge of her parents. After Sonoka's biological father refused to leave his wife for Chizuko, she brought up their daughter herself, giving her a totemic stuffed animal that had helped her survive her own childhood. When Chizuko died of a hemorrhage 18 months ago, she was still less than 50 years old. Sonoka's pinned her hopes for a brighter future on Ryota Uetsuji, the independent video producer who's moved in with her, but Ryota brings burdens of his own. The reason he's freelancing is so he won't have to take orders from anyone else, and a series of flashbacks shows him developing an abusive side. By that time, however, Chief Inspector Kusanagi, acting on Sonoka's report that Ryota has disappeared, decides that the corpse found floating in Minamiboso is probably Ryota's. Probably, because Sonoka can't identify the body; she's vanished herself, along with Chizuko's old friend Nae Matsunaga, an author of children's books who turns out to have an unexpected connection to Prof. Yukawa. Working very much at odds with each other, Kusanagi and Yukawa, both of whom take a lively interest in brothel hostess Hidemi Negishi, seek to unearth the truth about the case. Ultimately, though, that truth is hard to discover, and ambiguous even after it's found. A Chinese box of Japanese mystification. That invisible helix is everywhere.

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November 15, 2024

Ryoto Uetsuji's dead body was found at the base of a cliff by the sea. The cause of death was one bullet. His live-in girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi, reported him missing. Now she has disappeared along with a longtime family friend, Nae Matsunaga. Both are persons of interest with Sonoka being a prime suspect. Every time the police think they have tracked Sonoka down, she eludes them. How is she always one step ahead of them? As police detectives investigate, they learn that Ryoto had a violent streak and was physically abusing Sonoka. When a search of Nae's phone records shows she recently spoke with Professor Manubu Yukawa, also known to the police as "Detective Galileo," they get in touch for two reasons: first to learn the gist of the conversation and second to ask for his help, as he has worked with the police previously and solved many cases. VERDICT Higashino's fifth Detective Galileo procedural (after Silent Parade) relies too much on coincidence and contrivance to solve Ryoto's murder, which may cause readers to wonder how Professor Galileo comes to puzzle out the case.--Ed Goldberg

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