![]() He calls Hidaka’s wife at the hotel where she’s staying, and the two enter Hidaka’s locked office-where they find the writer’s murdered corpse. ![]() ![]() ![]() When Nonoguchi returns to Hidaka’s home, the house is dark. But during his dinner Nonoguchi receives a telephone call: Hidaka, upset, asks his friend to hurry back and help him. When Nonoguchi leaves, Hidaka-on the eve of moving to Canada with his wife-is poised to spend several hours alone writing the final installment of a story due that night. Once Hidaka arrives, so does another female visitor: a woman angry over the author’s thinly veiled portrait of her late brother in one of his novels. Waiting for Hidaka to come home that Tuesday afternoon, Nonoguchi finds a woman prowling in his friend’s garden: a neighbor who thinks Hidaka has poisoned her cat. He is remembering events before and after the murder of his friend, the best-selling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka. Malice is one of the bestsellingthe most acclaimednovel in Keigo Higashinos series featuring police detective Kyochiro Kaga, one of the most popular creations of the bestselling novelist in Asia. “The incident took place on April 16, 1996, a Tuesday.” So begins a first-person account by ex-teacher Osamu Nonoguchi. “Malice” (Minotaur, 276 pages, $24.95) is a prime example. Keigo Higashino combines Dostoyevskian psychological realism with classic detective-story puzzles reminiscent of Agatha Christie and E.C. ![]()
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