Description from the book cover:

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.

At the crime scene, Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi. Years ago when they were both teachers, they were colleagues at the same public school. Kaga went on to join the police force while Nonoguchi eventually left to become a full-time writer, though with not nearly the success of his friend Hidaka.


This story is told in first person by two different characters. One is the policeman investigating the murder and the other is a suspect, Osamu Nonoguchi, a friend of the victim. 

I liked the way the story was written; the structure is unusual. The first six chapters alternate between the suspect's written account of his activities (and thoughts) and Detective Kaga's accounts of the investigation. There is a chapter of interviews from people who knew Hidaka and Nonoguchi when they were middle school students. Then the last two chapters are Detective Kaga's accounts as he wraps up the investigation. 

Malice is not a thriller, but more of a character study. The investigation takes Detective Kaga back to the school days of the victim and his friend. The novel explores the how and why of the murder less than who did it. I like this kind of story and it was a very satisfying read. 

My husband read this book shortly after it was published in the US in 2014. Here is his review at Goodreads:

Malice is another meticulously plotted mystery/procedural from Keigo Higashino, author of incredibly clever The Devotion of Suspect X. This relatively brief book doesn’t waste time in getting the plot going (the murder on which everything hinges happens almost immediately) and also efficiently introduces the characters (of which there are really only five: police detective Kaga, writer friends Hidaka and Nonoguchi, and Hidaka’s two wives (one is deceased). Each first person section is an interview or account or interrogation or confession and at times it can be a bit confusing. The book has virtually no action with clever detective Kaga assembling and reassembling motives and alibis in an effort to ascertain the why of the crime. Well done.

 

In Japan, ten novels featuring Detective Kyoichiro Kaga have been published. This is the 4th book in the series but only the first book translated to English. The eighth book in the series, Newcomer, has also been translated into English. 

This was the second book I read for the Japanese Literature Challenge.



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Publisher:   Minotaur Books, 2014 (orig. pub. 1996)
Translator:  Alexander O. Smith with Elye Alexander
Length:       276 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Series:        Kyoichiro Kaga, #4
Setting:       Japan
Genre:        Police Procedural
Source:       Borrowed from my husband.