The Devotion of Suspect X

An ex husband is accidentally killed and a mathematician helps cover up the crime. Not my preferred writing style. Author over explained everything making it hard for the reader to form their own opinions. ( )

Like a kick in the gonads. ( )

I wanted to like this novel but couldn't get excited about it. With murder mysteries, I tend to like ones where the crime is intricate, you don't know "whodunit" or you have an endearing detective figuring out the situation.

In the Devotion of Suspect X, the crime coverup seemed unbelievable and the characters were never developed beyond the basics. It seemed more like a sketch of a mystery rather than the finished product.

Natsuo Kirino's Out remains my favorite novel for this type of mystery. ( )

The Devotion of Suspect X is part of a series about Japanese police detective Kusanagi that has been translated into English. Unfortunately this story didn't totally work for me. The description was that a veteran detective matches wits with a brilliant adversary, the Suspect X from the title. What I actually read was that the veteran detective seemed to focus on one suspect when he had no evidence to support his theory. He appeared to simply zero in and didn't seem to bother to look elsewhere. Luckily his very intelligent friend was along to help point him in the right direction.

Although the readers knew exactly whodunit this was still a clever mystery as the pieces were slowly put together and the reasoning behind everything was exposed. The ending was rather a surprise and I admit to being a little disappointed in how it was wrapped up.

Overall I didn't find [The Devotion of Suspect X] to be different or intriguing enough for me to go looking for more of these mysteries. ( )

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Hagashino This detective novel will make you gasp as the final truth unfurls.No spoilers here. Having read a few novels translated from Japanese I guess the cultural differences just seemed normal to me. If you aren't used to Japanese ways and this was the first one you read it may leave a bit bewildered. I am referring to the sense of order and duty that pervades Japanese culture. If you weren't used to that you may well read this and think "why didn't she ....?" or "why did he...?". However, I am digressing.This is one of the cleverest novels I have read in a long time. I would never have got to the ending unless I read it. You know what it is like with some novels you have sense of how it will end without having all the details. As the plot unfolds you get swept along with it, the writing, characterisation and narrative are flawless.If you like a good crime novel you will love this. It wraps itself across several genres with ease.
 
Simply Brilliant and absolutely one of the best crime novels I have read...ever! ( )