Two celebrated authors from Japan with their latest, and one novel set in California, written by a British author and screenwriter. There’s much to savor in the pages of these three mystery thrillers.
Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka
Our writer Kotaro Isaka is perhaps best known for Bullet Train, as that Japanese best-seller was optioned by Hollywood and turned into a film that starred Brad Pitt. While interesting enough, I personally felt that the adaptation never came close to the lunacy and charm of the book. But we did get to meet the unlucky assassin Ladybug (Nanao), in that novel; and he’s back, still working on assignments for Maria. This one should be simple enough, to personally deliver a birthday present to a guest in a luxury Tokyo hotel. But this is Nanao, and before he leaves the hotel room, the guest is dead, with Nanao insisting that the man he killed was merely assuming the identity of said guest. The next chapter introduces us to six ‘new’ assassins on their way to the same hotel; hired by a crime boss to retrieve a woman gifted with a photographic memory, Kamino.
Isaka has won the Shincho Mystery Club Award and Mystery Writers of Japan Award, so he’s a tried and tested hand in delivering the goods with his crime novels. Here we have all sorts of killers and assassins in one hotel, and it’s soon a fatal game of one-upmanship. No spoilers here in terms of how the story develops, twists, and turns; but I’m ready to say that Isaka’s trademark gift for creating unique, fully fleshed characters, providing brisk, compelling action sequences, and constantly surprising us with where said action takes us, are all fully on display in this new story. Typically, it takes a few chapters to get things going as beyond Ladybug (Nanao) and Maria, it’s all new characters here, so exposition and setting up the premise are the first orders of the day. Rest assured, that the moment those have been attended to, it’s off to the races, and we are so entertained!
Deadbeat by Adam Hamdy
Author of The Other Side of Night, Hamdy’s latest finds an anti-protagonist in Peyton Collard. Collard will say he was once a good man, but his life changed after a horrific car accident, and he lives on the faint glimmer of hope found in the relationship he has with his daughter Skye. His ex-wife has lost all hope in him. The premise of this story commences when he’s offered an anonymous life-changing proposition. If he kills one evil person, a low-life nightclub owner with mob connections, he’ll get $100,000. Given his state of desperation, and seeking a way to cover the impending medical expenses of Skye, it’s a proposition he seriously considers. It’s a lifeline thrown at his feet, and given that Skye has impending costly medical issues, it doesn’t take much for Peyton to go down the slippery slope of equivocating, and justifying his taking up the offers.
I would describe this novel as existential crime fiction, as Hamdy puts us into the mind and thought process of Collard. He’s the ultimate reluctant hitman, and things get complicated after the deeds when he begins to question why he was picked and who did the picking. It’s a deep rabbit hole that he’s fallen into and as we read, we begin to anticipate the worst. To his credit, Hamdy does know how to tighten the screws, and throw enough twists and turns in the narrative to keep us guessing. This vigilante journey of Collard across California swiftly descends into one that can’t be justified or reasoned out. He’s not some avenging Angel of Justice, but a serial killer. As for the search for Peyton’s anonymous patron, it becomes the last card that Hamdy will reveal, as the novel reaches its brutal conclusion. Hamdy is also a screenplay writer and that shows in this novel.
Invisible Helix by Keigo Higashino
There is a strong history of Japanese crime fiction and the locked room mystery that dates back to the 1930’s and one of the more recent highlights would be The Devotion of Suspect X. Higashino is the author of Devotion and Invisible Helix is his most recently translated Detective Galileo book. Galileo is physicist Manabu Yukawa, who assists the police in their investigations when asked to, and this one involves his own traumatic past. There’s a Galileo Limited Series on Netflix right now based on this Higashino creation. In this Helix case, the corpse of Ryota Uetsugi is found floating in Tokyo Bay. A bullet proves this was no drowning. His girlfriend Sonoka had reported him missing weeks before, but now that the body has been fished out, she can’t be found in the apartment they shared. Was she a victim of domestic violence?
We follow Chief Inspector Kusanagi, Det. Sgt. Utsumi, and female Officer Kaoru as they try to unravel the case, and call on Yukawa/Galileo, for his invaluable input and peculiar way of looking at things. While Sonoka was away in Kyoto when Ryota was found in the bay, it does not account for her sudden disappearance. Higashino’s signature crime writing magic has been to blend psychological realism with the mystery-solving. Here, the police officers, and the various people involved in the case; they all get their backstories and we’re made to understand what makes them tick as fully fleshed characters. And when ‘Galileo’ involves himself in the case, our interest in the narrative peaks, as Yukawa is an unorthodox thinker, and is guided by his own moral code, helping the police as it pleases him, and not bound by duty or some sworn oath. There’s much to savor and enjoy in this new ‘full course mystery meal’ from Higashino.