By the end of the 19th century, translations of mystery fiction (novels as well as short stories) from Britain, France, the United States, and elsewhere had appeared in Japan, where they attracted considerable interest. In fact, during the period when "mysteries" became a global phenomenon, Japan was one of the principal nodes of the genre, as it continues to be today, though you wouldn't have guessed that in the 1960s, when, in my mid-teens, I first began to read Japanese fiction. Novels by Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, and other masters of "literary fiction" were on the shelves of our public library in English translation, but, for instance, Seichō Matsumoto's brilliant 1961 mystery Suna no utsuwa ("Vessel of Sand") didn't appear in English until 1989, lamely titled Inspector Imanishi Investigates.
Thankfully, that has changed: Translations of crime fiction from Japan appear routinely now—and I wouldn't mind seeing even more of them. A case in point is Keigo Higashino, who is described on the dust-jacket of one of his novels as "the single best-selling, best-known novelist in Japan and around Asia."
Higashino, born in 1958, earned a degree in electrical engineering and worked in that field for several years after his graduation before he became a full-time writer. "A good electrical engineer," so an AI bot informs me, "has a combination of technical skills, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills." Who knew? Higashino's novels are intensely "orderly," not at all in a way that conflicts with his depiction of human beings (like us) at their best, at their worst, and in the midst of what we sometimes call "everyday life."
Like many crime novelists, Higashino often works in a series, as he does with Invisible Helix, featuring one of his most popular characters, Manabu Yukawa, a professor of physics nicknamed "Professor Galileo" by members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department after he assists them with a case. (He was introduced to American readers in The Devotion of Suspect X, published in English in 2011, but there were two previous books in the series in Japan. Invisible Helix is the fifth book in that series to appear in English.) To some degree Yukawa resembles the gifted "amateurs" who help the police solve cases in many so-called Golden Age mysteries. That's no surprise, since Higashino himself is deeply versed in the history of the genre. In a mini-interview in connection with the book that preceded Invisible Helix in the series, Silent Parade, Higashino was asked what writers "inspired the story line" of that novel. Here is his answer:
For those who haven't read Silent Parade, spoiler warning—it was inspired by a famous book by Agatha Christie. There's also a key plot point derived from John Dickson Carr's classic Sir Henry Merrivale locked-room mystery novel, The Judas Window.
Some readers may be enticed by this, as I am, but others may say "Meh! Too much cerebral game-playing; not enough humanity." In fact, with Higashino, nothing could be further from the truth. Part of the reason I enjoy him so much is that he combines the playfully cerebral with the deeply humane. This new novel, Invisible Helix, is set in motion by a particularly ugly case of "domestic abuse." Higashino treats this with sympathy—he's not simply pressing plot-buttons. As "Professor Galileo" becomes involved in the investigation—and as it finally becomes clear that this case has roots in his own past—the novel presents and then solves a dazzling intellectual puzzle. There is no contradiction between these intertwining strands. Like Sherlock Holmes, like Hercule Poirot, like Miss Marple, "Professor Galileo" is patently a figure of fantasy and at the same time compellingly "real."
I often encounter dismissals of mysteries as too "formulaic" (not only the "classic" variety but contemporary examples as well). But I do wonder at times what's behind that objection to the "formulaic," which would of course consign Homer's epics to the trash-bin. Fiction such as Higashino's, set in a culture much different from our own, may in some cases disarm that preemptive disdain. May it be so.
Invisible Helix: A Detective Galileo Novel
by Keigo Higashino
Minotaur Books, 288 pp., $28
John Wilson writes about books for First Things, Prufrock News, National Review, the American Conservative, and other outlets.