Newcomer(新参者) Japanese Novel Thoughts

A drama adaption released in 2010 in Japan. 

   I've made posts about a few of Keigo Higashino's works. One being Malice, that I loved more than I thought I would. The Galileo series of books( The Devotion of Suspect X, Midsummer's Equation etc) will always be some of my favorites by this author just because I love Galileo as a character himself. I also thought the live action films/ tv drama do the novels very good justice if I could say so myself. His newest novel to be translated into English is titled Newcomer and is apart of the Kaga Kyoichiro series of books. Malice is apart of this series as well. Kaga is mentioned in the Galileo novels as the detective that worked beside him from the police force. I would like to think that his series of books are his background story before he met Galileo. Keigo Higashino is a hugely popular writer in Japan who's works have been adapted into many other forms of entertainment. He has won many awards in Japan and outside of Japan for The Devotion of Suspect X.

    A women is found strangled in her high rise apartment in the middle of metropolitan Tokyo. There's absolutely no evidence at the scene of the crime except for the mark around her neck and a whole neighborhood of people who could have seen the criminal in their self owned shops days before the murder. Who could have committed this seamlessly perfect crime? Why would they?




     Newcomer seems to craft a story of community as you turn the pages. Each chapter contains different perspectives of the people who live in an old neighborhood full of stores. You learn about the various things that the stores sell as well as the people running them. Some of the character insight might seem kind of meaningless as first but readers who have read Keigo's works know that not piece of information given is useless to finding out the mystery. So, I spent most of my time learning about the many cast of characters while reading between the lines to find out if what was being told proclaimed to the murder. It wasn't that the characters were boring- just not very interesting until you got to the people introduced later on in the book. Everyone was pretty suspicious to me. I did find most of the interactions the characters had with Kaga to be very funny. Their thoughts about him and his appearance cracked me up too. Heck, everyone had kind of mean thoughts about Kaga to tell the truth. Not that he cared… Moving on, I was looking for that shocking twist of a mystery that Malice used to knock me off my feet. Newcomer doesn't quite live up to the brilliance of mystery within Malice's pages. However, Newcomer does a great job presenting a "who done it" mystery that literally guides you step by step of how the murder was done in a way that left no evidence. The murder victim's background is also a mystery so readers piece together who she was through character interactions of who had seen her, including her family members. Hiding who had killed her wasn't handled as well as in Keigo's other novels in my opinion. This novel gives you all the information you need to make your decision before you reach the end of the book. Keigo seemed to want to focus on why the murder was committed and how instead of trying hard to hid who the killer was. He tries to add one last layer to make the story feel even more complexed towards the end. That's just how Keigo likes to write his novels.

    Newcomer makes certain to be full of rich details for the reader to feel the culture of the neighborhood Kaga transverses during the novel. I could envision the old style of the store buildings that would seem outdated to the youth of today but full of history for one who cares about that sort of thing. Newcomer down to the core is really a story about a community of people connected to each other. I might be going a little deep here, Still I also believe that detective Kaga going into the community to investigate led him to form a bond with the people there. His actions also signify Kaga being a newcomer to not only the community but also the police force that he was transferred to. The murder victim was also a newcomer in a sense too. You'll learn more about that if you decide to read the book. I won't put any spoilers here.





    This Detective Kaga Mystery felt a bit weak around the edges. Especially if you just came from reading Malice. Readers might be a bit disappointed at the drastic turn Newcomer decides take compared to the other novels. It's not a bad mystery novel but it's not up to par with the greatness of Keigo Higashino's other works.