Newcomer by Keigo HigashinoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Besides individual, non-serial novels, Keigo Higashino has also written two loose series where we meet the same protagonists: the Galileo series with Dr Yukawa, a scientist who helps his friend police detective Kusanagi with difficult cases (so far 9 volumes, of which 3 have been translated), and Police Detective Kaga, who by now has filled ten books with his adventures (of which two have been translated).
Higashino wrote his first book about Kyoichiro Kaga already in 1986 ("Graduation," when Kaga was still at university, so rather different from the other books in the series) and the last one dates from 2013. As Higashino has said, "Kaga is a person who has a solid character." Higashino therefore often relies on him "when writing challenging, experimental works" different from what he has undertaken so far.
That is certainly the case in "Newcomer" (Shinzanmono) from 2009, No 8 in the series. A woman in her forties living alone in Nihonbashi Kodenmacho has been strangled. Kyoichiro Kaga, who has just started work at the Nihonbashi department, walks around the streets of Ningyocho, an area unknown to him, and visits families and shops that may have some relation to the case.
In fact, the novel consists of a series of short stories - each short story becomes a chapter - and each time there is another protagonist; in each short story Kaga (who is not the central character) solves a small mystery or human relations problem concerning people who have some connection with the victim or incident. The stories are also interrelated, we go back and forth in time and place, and in the later stories learn more about events in the earlier stories. On top of that, going around in a sort of concentric circles, we gradually approach the central case and learn more about the murder and its possible solution.
The short stories are set in Ningyocho, part of downtown Tokyo ("shitamachi"), where you won't find any traditional architecture - it has been filled with square blocks of concrete office buildings - but where, in between the modernization, some old human feelings survive, especially in the traditional shops, such as a rice cracker shop, a ryotei restaurant, a shop selling pottery, another one selling (and repairing) clocks, a shop selling old-fashioned toys, etc. etc.
The title "newcomer" refers not only to Kaga, who has been transferred to a new district, but in the first place to the murder victim, a woman who has separated from her uninterested husband and egoistic son, and has started a new, independent life in this old neighborhood, but who also had a particular reason to start living here...
The murder case is neatly solved, although there are no fireworks or double tricks. The book is focused on life as lived in an old downtown part of Tokyo, and on the altruism of detective Kaga, who, while solving the larger mystery, also finds time to help the people he meets with their daily problems. For non-Japanese, this book is especially interesting as a window on life in Japan.
In a Japanese survey held some years ago, "Newcomer" scored fourth place among all novels by Keigo Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X was not unexpectedly No 1), which is quite high. I give 4 stars, as for me it is the best book by Higashino.
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