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Review: Keigo Higashino - A Midsummer's Equation (2011)
Another very compelling mystery from Keigo Higashino. I was going to call it a fun little mystery but I feel a bit weird calling murders fun lol. This was the third book in the Professor Galileo series that was translated into English, and also the third one of this series that I’ve read. I felt that it had a different tone from the Devotion of Suspect X and Salvation of Saint. It felt more like a police mystery. But overall still a good mystery.
Spoilers for a Midsummer’s Equation, the Devotion of Suspect X, and Salvation of a Saint.
Story
The mystery took place at Hari Cove. A boy, Kyohei, was sent to live with his relatives in Hari Cove for the summer while his parents managed their business in Osaka. At the time, mining work was proposed for the cove and the locals were skeptical about it, so there were a series of conferences and seminars to discuss the mining. Professor Yukawa was sent to speak on the topic of physics.
Kyohei was sent to live with his Aunt Setsuko, Uncle Shigehiro, and cousin Narumi, who ran an inn. Yukawa also stayed at the inn. There was a third guest staying there who was later found dead.
I’ll tell the story chronologically. There was a man called Hidetoshi Senba. He was married, but had feelings for a hostess called Setsuko. He had introduced her to a new job at a restaurant. Even after she started at the restaurant, Senba would visit her, sometimes with another hostess Nobuko Miyake.
Setsuko and Senba had a one night stand, and soon afterwards, Setsuko married Shigehiro Kawahata, a regular at the restaurant. They soon had a child, Narumi, that Senba realized was his child, though they both agreed that she would be brought up as Shigehiro’s daughter.
Nobuko reconnected with Senba and while drunk, he confessed to her that he had had a child with Setsuko. Nobuko was short on money and she wanted to use this information to extort money from Setsuko. When she went to Setsuko’s house, she could only find Narumi. Nobuko made comments about her not being her father’s child which angered Narumi and Narumi killed her. Setsuko and Senba worked together to cover up the crime, and Senba went to prison for it. The Kawahata family soon moved to Hari Cove, where coincidentally Senba’s wife hailed from.
After Senba left prison, times were tough and he was soon homeless. The detective who had put him behind bars was Tsukahara. He had known that something wasn’t quite right about Senba’s case and he figured out that Senba was covering for someone. He spent his time looking after Senba (who was suffering from cancer) and eventually got the truth. Tsukahara went to Hari Cover under the guise of attending the discussions about mining, but he purposely went to the Kawahatas’ inn, and asked Setsuko to let Senba see Narumi but she feigned ignorance. Shigehiro had been outside.
Shigehiro and Kyohei were planning to play with fireworks, and Shigehiro asked Kyohei to cover up holes in the house where rockets might have flown into, including the chimney. Kyohei covered them with wet pieces of cardboard. Shigehiro had told Kyohei not to tell anyone. Shigehiro had also arranged Tsukahara to sleep in a certain room so that with the combination of the covered chimney, there would be a utilities failure and Tsukhara would die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Setsuko had been out drinking with Yukawa and when they went home, they bumped into Setsuko and her friend Sawamura. Sawamura offered to drive Setsuko back to the inn. When they arrived, Shigehiro told them about the body, and the three arranged to have the body thrown down onto some rocks.
The police ruled that the carbon monoxide poisoning was an accident, so Shigehiro, Setsuko, and Sawamura were only convicted on charges of concealing the body. Though Yukawa had figured everything out, he was wary about revealing it specifically because he wanted to protect Kyohei. If he revealed Narumi’s crime in the past, it would lead to Kyohei’s crime. Yukawa felt that Kyohei would be too overwhelmed to understand what he had done. He instead asked Narumi that if Kyohei grew up and asked her for the truth, that she would tell it to him.
I felt that this story was different from previous mysteries in this series more because of the murder mechanics. In the Devotion of Suspect X and Salvation of a Saint, the crimes hinged on a single gimmick. In the Devotion of Suspect X, the gimmick was that the culprit had killed another person in order to fabricate evidence that would lead to him instead of to the true murderer. In Salvation of a Saint, the gimmick was that there was a filter on the tap with poison in it, and that the wife was always controlling it because she was always the one to get water for her husband. If I had to point to a singular gimmick on which this crime hinged, I would perhaps point to Narumi being Setsuko and Senba’s child. However, it’s not quite the same because of the human element, and that was also why I think this novel felt more like a typical detective novel and a bit less distinct than the previous two novels. Not that it was bad, it just didn’t give me the same awe as the two previous novels did, but I still found it suspenseful.
Higashino did also expand the human element of this story with Yukawa helping to conceal the crimes because he wanted to protect Kyohei. I think it’s probably not common to have such an ending in a police detective novel, but our star detective here is Professor Yukawa and not Detective Kusanagi, so that was why Higashino shaped the ending to Yukawa’s actions rather than the police.
I felt slightly unfulfilled because Narumi continued to not have to pay for her crime. I know that Yukawa did not expose her for the sake of Kyohei. He wasn’t protecting Narumi, and he only asked that she help Kyohei and be fair to him when time comes. I guess I just felt bad for Senba, but we have to accept that he accepted this, and that Narumi can only pay him back by protecting Hari Cove because if she did turn herself in, his sacrifice would be for naught.
Overall still a great mystery and now that I think about it, the ending is distinct, just not in the same ways that the two previous novels were.
Writing & Translation
I believe Alexander O. Smith also translated the previous two novels and he did a good job here too. No complaints. The book read very well and retained that style I associate with Keigo Higashino’s English-translated novels. They writing is presented in a simple and matter-of-fact way and somehow that makes the crimes feel even cooler and cleverer.
I noticed that some characters would be called by their surnames and some by their given names. I understand that this was due to the readers’ relationship with each of the characters. For example, we knew the police officers in the context of their professions, so we addressed them by their surnames (Kusanagi, Utsumi, etc.). However, we knew the Kawahata family as a family who ran a business together, so we addressed them all by name (Shigehiro, Setsuko, Narumi). It made sense lol.
Characters
Manabu Yukawa
Yukawa’s never really the main character in his novels, but he is the main character of these novels. He’s never even officially a police consultant. He’s just always at the periphery of the cases. He doesn’t even join in on investigations. He just makes his own observations, does his own experiments, and comes to his own conclusions. In previous books, he would relay them back to Kusanagi.
In this novel, Yukawa built a friendship with Kyohei on the train ride to Hari Cove. Yukawa had been invited to comment on the mining panel. From Narumi’s observations, he was neutral, not caring for the corporate grandiosity of the mining organizations, but also not averse to scientific development. Through conversation with Yukawa, Narumi found herself gaining a more balanced appreciation of the Hari Cove developments as well. While not with the panels, Yukawa did experiments and helped Kyohei with his homework.
When Yukawa first had any inkling of what had happened, he had told Kusanagi to tread very carefully because it would create big changes in someone’s life. With the way he was speaking, I had expected Kyohei to be involved somehow, and I kept waiting for it until the very end.
I think Yukawa withheld the truth from the police because he felt it would be traumatizing for Kyohei to find out at that age that he was responsible for Tsukahara’s death, though of course he did it unknowingly. In return for his silence, he asked Narumi to help Kyohei if he ever finally understood what he had done and needed to know why he did it. I think this emphasized that Yukawa was not a police detective, and simply just a civilian with the expertise to solve cases. Unlike a police detective, Yukawa did not consider what was morally right or just. He only cared for Kyohei’s wellbeing. So I guess this is almost the first time in the series that we see Yukawa’s inner values more than that of curiosity.
Narumi Kawahata
Narumi was raised as the daughter of Setsuko and Shigehiro, though biologically she was the daughter of Setsuko and Senba. I think Higashino wanted to portray her as a kind of neutral character, one who only cared for the wellbeing of Hari Cove. The trajectory of her character was that she started to find Yukawa annoying, but also that there might have been more to her devotion to Hari Cove.
As a youth, she had killed Nobuko Miyake. Shigehiro had hinted towards Narumi not being his daughter when he was drunk but that was never mentioned again. When Nobuko mentioned this sore spot, Narumi flew into a rage and killed Nobuko. She then went into shock while Setsuko and Senba covered it up for her.
Narumi soon moved to Hari Cove with her parents where she started a new life. She had received a painting of Hari Cove from Senba and that kind of became her new motive in life.
There were some romantic subplots that were set up for Narumi but they didn’t go anywhere, nor did they need to. The point of them was just to flesh out the setting. Several people had crushes on Narumi, namely Sawamura, her fellow advocate for Hari Cove, and Nishiguchi, a police officer in Hari Cove who had been Narumi’s classmate. Yukawa had mentioned many times that Narumi didn’t seem the kind of lady who’d be so invested in Hari Cove, which perhaps implied that she was kind of a glamourous city girl. And that led Yukawa to believe that she was protecting Hari Cove for something else, which ended up being Senba.
I mentioned before that I felt unfulfilled that Narumi did not answer for her crimes. We never once even saw her exhibit guilt for the murder or for Senba taking the fall. But I now understand that that was because if she ever did take responsibility for the crime, then she would have wasted Senba’s sacrifice. In the Devotion of Suspect X, when the murderer turned herself in, the man who helped her screamed in rage because all he had done was to protect her, and now they were both in prison instead of only one of them. Narumi was respecting Senba’s love for her by staying out of jail. She had to be ignorant of any connection to Senba, and return, the only thing she could do was take care of Hari Cove for him, a place he had always found beautiful.
Setsuko Kawahata
Setsuko was Narumi’s mother and Shigehiro’s wife. She’d met Senba while being a hostess, and he had introduced her to a new job as a cook, where she met Shigehiro. It seemed that while Shigehiro was courting her, she still had Senba in her heart, and that was why she slept with him once to get him out of her mind and heart forever. When Senba confronted Setsuko about Narumi being his, she denied it, though her face was tearful and sorrowful, which confirmed the truth.
When Narumi murdered Nobuko, Setsuko called up Senba and they worked on their plan. It was never a question of whether they would protect Narumi, it was imperative that they did as her parents. As part of protecting Narumi, Setsuko would never acknowledge any relationship with Senba, though we found out that Shigehiro knew. Tsukahara had come to Hari Cove to ask Setsuko to let Senba see Narumi. Though she was moved, she could only feign ignorance to continue protecting Narumi.
Setsuko was not involved in Tsukahara’s murder, only the movement of the body. However, I felt a sense of resignation from her. No matter what, she would just take the fall. It was easier on the family if she did. She knew that the crimes of the past would catch up to her, she might as well pay her dues now if only they would continue to protect Narumi.
Shigehiro Kawahata
Shigehiro was Setsuko’s husband, and to the world, he was Narumi’s father. He’d long ago found out that Narumi was not his child. Perhaps he’d added the days up. When his coworkers said that Narumi didn’t look like him, it was a slap in the face. I think he resented Setsuko for it, though he wouldn’t say it out loud (when sober).
It was implied that Shigehiro had heard the conversation between Setsuko and Tsukahara, and he wanted to get rid of Tsukahara to keep the secret of Narumi not being his child. When he went out to set fireworks with Kyohei, he’d asked Kyohei to cover openings in the house with wet carboard. His leg was not so good, so that was why he asked Kyohei. I wonder if Shigehiro had purposely asked Kyohei so that Kyohei could take the fall in case anyone got that far in the confession, or whether he truly couldn’t climb up because of his leg. I forgot what Shigehiro’s profession had been, but he was an engineer and it was implied that he would have understood what covering the chimney with wet cardboard would have done. If I recall correctly, Yukawa and Kyohei had also discussed the properties of wet paper/cardboard, so that was meant to clue us in.
Shigehiro intended to continue hiding the crime, but when the police got close, he confessed to moving the body, but not to the murder. The police’s official stance was that it was an equipment failure that led to the carbon monoxide poisoning, though the forensic scientists could not recreate the accident (because they did not figure out the wet cardboard covering the chimney).
I think Shigehiro would have preferred not going to jail at all, and I don’t think he really had the same intentions of protection Narumi as Setsuko and Senba did. But the next best thing was that he was not convicted of murder and nly for moving the body.
Kyohei
Kyohei was the boy that Yukawa met on the train to Hari Cove. Kyohei had told Yukawa about the inn he was staying at, and that was how Yukawa came to stay at the same inn.
From the beginning, we found out that his parents were not very attentive to him. He was kind of reluctant to go to Hari Cove because it wasn’t very exciting but also he could feel that he was somewhat of a nuisance to his parents. They never put the time in to teach him, they just wanted him out of the way.
While in Hari Cove, Kyohei spent a lot of time with Yukawa because there wasn’t much else to do. Yukawa tried to get Kyohei interested in science and math, doing experiments with him and helping him with his summer homework. By the end of the novel, we saw that Kyohei had more of an interest in science and also some more academic discipline as well. He got his parents to let him stay one more day by insisting that he needed to learn how to do his homework himself.
When Kyohei had gone out to set fireworks with his uncle, his uncle had told him not to tell anyone about the fact that he had covered up the chimney. Kyohei either hadn’t realized or didn’t want to realize until the end of the novel the implications of what he had done. He’d asked his father to extend their stay in Hari Cove one more day because Kyohei wanted to talk to Yukawa about it, because Yukawa was an adult he trusted. Yukawa would not tell him what he’d done, because he knew it would be traumatizing to Kyohei at that age to know he’d killed someone. But he told Kyohei that he wasn’t alone, perhaps referring to himself and also Narumi when he grew old enough to be able to understand what he’d done.
Motoya Sawamura
Sawamura was a local activist who’d hung out with Narumi a lot at the beginning, as they were attending meetings together. He was a little more combative and talkative at these discussions. Narumi knew that he had a crush on her, and when he suggested to her that she be his assistant, she put it off.
Sawamura had initially told the police that when Shigehiro and Setsuko had discovered that Tsukahara was missing, he drove around with Shigehiro looking for Tsukahara. What tipped Yukawa off was that he was driving a pickup truck with only two seats, instead of a van that could seat another person. So basically if Sawamura and Shigehiro had gone looking for Tsukahara in a pickup and found him, he could only sit in the open trunk. So that clued us in to the fact that Sawamura was fishy.
After Setsuko and Shigehiro were arrested, Sawamura turned himself in as well. Though Sawamura wouldn’t have known about the murder being a murder.
Masatsugu Tsukahara
Tsukahara was a star detective in Tokyo. Even after retirement he was hung up on Senba’s case because he knew things didn’t add up and he realized that Senba was covering for someone. He found Senba when he was homeless and struggling and put him in a hospital where he continued to ensure that Senba was looked after. Eventually, Senba told the truth to Tsukahara.
Initially the story was pointing to Tsukahara going to Hari Cove to further investigate Senba, but we later discovered that he’d actually gone on Senba’s behalf, to ask that Narumi see him one last time before he died, as he was very ill from cancer.
Setsuko turned him down, but the unfortunate thing was that Shigehiro had heard the conversation. If Shigehiro hadn’t known, I think Tsukahara would still have been alive.
Hidetoshi Senba
Senba was initially introduced to us as “Senba the murderer,” somewhat of a local legend of Hari Cove. He’d had a house on the east side of town but it was either up for sale or already sold. He had a wife he loved, and it was implied that his infidelity was one-time-only. She had cancer and he took care of her until her death. She’d painted the beautiful painting of Hari Cove.
Senba had feelings for Setsuko and they’d had sex when she’d gotten drunk once. From that night came Narumi. When Senba approached Setsuko, she denied it though her actions confirmed his suspicions that Narumi was his daughter. He’d only asked Setsuko for a photo of Narumi and he would leave them alone forever, and he stuck to that promise. It was Setsuko who sought him out when she needed help for Narumi’s murder of Nobuko.
Senba acted suspiciously, even resisting a bit, so that the police would believe that he truly was the murderer, though he never truly convinced Tsukhara. After he served his sentence, he had a job as a trash collector but then the company he worked for folded and he was on the streets. He went to various soup kitchens and grew very ill. Tsukahara found him and brought him to a hospital. The hospital owed Tsukahara a favour so that was why Senba got to stay there for free. He had cancer and was quite sick.
When Kusanagi and Utsumi interviewed him, they couldn’t get much out of him. When Yukawa interviewed him, we saw strong responses from Senba. Yukawa had guessed that Narumi was his daughter, though he only described her as the lady who was working hard to protect Hari Cove. Yukawa had taken a photo of Narumi (against her will) so that he could give it to Senba, who stored it with the baby photo he had of Narumi.
Shunpei Kusanagi
Kusanagi was the police detective. With Utsumi, he conducted the investigation in Tokyo into the Kawahata family as well as Senba. However, in this mystery, Yukawa did not share the whole truth with him because he was afraid for Kyohei. Kusanagi did not push though, as I think he respected Yukawa as a friend. If he couldn’t get to his own conclusions he couldn’t ask Yukawa to do his own work for him.
Themes
I guess the big theme in this mystery was protecting others and covering for their crimes.
We saw this obviously with Senba taking the fall for Narumi’s crime. It derailed his life and put him in a bad state. And yet, Setsuko and Narumi could not help him because it would compromise the false narrative they’d hurt so hard to draw up.
In order to protect Kyohei, Yukawa had to keep the secret of Tsukahara’s murder, but also of Senba’s murder. It was two layers of crime that had to continue to be kept under wraps. If Kyohei’s part in Tsukahara’s murder was uncovered, then Shigehiro’s relationship with Tsukahara would be investigated and Narumi’s crime would be uncovered. If Narumi’s crime was uncovered first, then the police would keep digging into their relationship with Tsukahara and Kyohei’s crime would be uncovered.
I think it’s interesting that this novel almost doesn’t even care to look into the morality of doing such a thing. Even I instinctively felt that it would have been more just for Narumi to turn herself in and for Shigehiro’s true crime to be revealed. But then we take a closer look at the sacrifices of the family and we wonder if we gain anything by doing so. What do we gain if Narumi turns herself in? Senba’s already served his time, the secret of her parentage will be out, and Narumi will lose years of her life to the prison system. Perhaps some may consider that unnecessary. What do we gain if Kyohei knows that he helped murder Tsukahara? Trauma with knowing that he helped kill someone, and also distrust towards his relatives. It’s an interesting question that Higashino has raised in this book.
Overall
The more I talked about the book, the more I appreciated its differences with the earlier novels. Higashino’s become a crime novel that I enjoy a lot and I look forward to continuing to read his work!
Spoilers for a Midsummer’s Equation, the Devotion of Suspect X, and Salvation of a Saint.
Story
The mystery took place at Hari Cove. A boy, Kyohei, was sent to live with his relatives in Hari Cove for the summer while his parents managed their business in Osaka. At the time, mining work was proposed for the cove and the locals were skeptical about it, so there were a series of conferences and seminars to discuss the mining. Professor Yukawa was sent to speak on the topic of physics.
Kyohei was sent to live with his Aunt Setsuko, Uncle Shigehiro, and cousin Narumi, who ran an inn. Yukawa also stayed at the inn. There was a third guest staying there who was later found dead.
I’ll tell the story chronologically. There was a man called Hidetoshi Senba. He was married, but had feelings for a hostess called Setsuko. He had introduced her to a new job at a restaurant. Even after she started at the restaurant, Senba would visit her, sometimes with another hostess Nobuko Miyake.
Setsuko and Senba had a one night stand, and soon afterwards, Setsuko married Shigehiro Kawahata, a regular at the restaurant. They soon had a child, Narumi, that Senba realized was his child, though they both agreed that she would be brought up as Shigehiro’s daughter.
Nobuko reconnected with Senba and while drunk, he confessed to her that he had had a child with Setsuko. Nobuko was short on money and she wanted to use this information to extort money from Setsuko. When she went to Setsuko’s house, she could only find Narumi. Nobuko made comments about her not being her father’s child which angered Narumi and Narumi killed her. Setsuko and Senba worked together to cover up the crime, and Senba went to prison for it. The Kawahata family soon moved to Hari Cove, where coincidentally Senba’s wife hailed from.
After Senba left prison, times were tough and he was soon homeless. The detective who had put him behind bars was Tsukahara. He had known that something wasn’t quite right about Senba’s case and he figured out that Senba was covering for someone. He spent his time looking after Senba (who was suffering from cancer) and eventually got the truth. Tsukahara went to Hari Cover under the guise of attending the discussions about mining, but he purposely went to the Kawahatas’ inn, and asked Setsuko to let Senba see Narumi but she feigned ignorance. Shigehiro had been outside.
Shigehiro and Kyohei were planning to play with fireworks, and Shigehiro asked Kyohei to cover up holes in the house where rockets might have flown into, including the chimney. Kyohei covered them with wet pieces of cardboard. Shigehiro had told Kyohei not to tell anyone. Shigehiro had also arranged Tsukahara to sleep in a certain room so that with the combination of the covered chimney, there would be a utilities failure and Tsukhara would die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Setsuko had been out drinking with Yukawa and when they went home, they bumped into Setsuko and her friend Sawamura. Sawamura offered to drive Setsuko back to the inn. When they arrived, Shigehiro told them about the body, and the three arranged to have the body thrown down onto some rocks.
The police ruled that the carbon monoxide poisoning was an accident, so Shigehiro, Setsuko, and Sawamura were only convicted on charges of concealing the body. Though Yukawa had figured everything out, he was wary about revealing it specifically because he wanted to protect Kyohei. If he revealed Narumi’s crime in the past, it would lead to Kyohei’s crime. Yukawa felt that Kyohei would be too overwhelmed to understand what he had done. He instead asked Narumi that if Kyohei grew up and asked her for the truth, that she would tell it to him.
I felt that this story was different from previous mysteries in this series more because of the murder mechanics. In the Devotion of Suspect X and Salvation of a Saint, the crimes hinged on a single gimmick. In the Devotion of Suspect X, the gimmick was that the culprit had killed another person in order to fabricate evidence that would lead to him instead of to the true murderer. In Salvation of a Saint, the gimmick was that there was a filter on the tap with poison in it, and that the wife was always controlling it because she was always the one to get water for her husband. If I had to point to a singular gimmick on which this crime hinged, I would perhaps point to Narumi being Setsuko and Senba’s child. However, it’s not quite the same because of the human element, and that was also why I think this novel felt more like a typical detective novel and a bit less distinct than the previous two novels. Not that it was bad, it just didn’t give me the same awe as the two previous novels did, but I still found it suspenseful.
Higashino did also expand the human element of this story with Yukawa helping to conceal the crimes because he wanted to protect Kyohei. I think it’s probably not common to have such an ending in a police detective novel, but our star detective here is Professor Yukawa and not Detective Kusanagi, so that was why Higashino shaped the ending to Yukawa’s actions rather than the police.
I felt slightly unfulfilled because Narumi continued to not have to pay for her crime. I know that Yukawa did not expose her for the sake of Kyohei. He wasn’t protecting Narumi, and he only asked that she help Kyohei and be fair to him when time comes. I guess I just felt bad for Senba, but we have to accept that he accepted this, and that Narumi can only pay him back by protecting Hari Cove because if she did turn herself in, his sacrifice would be for naught.
Overall still a great mystery and now that I think about it, the ending is distinct, just not in the same ways that the two previous novels were.
Writing & Translation
I believe Alexander O. Smith also translated the previous two novels and he did a good job here too. No complaints. The book read very well and retained that style I associate with Keigo Higashino’s English-translated novels. They writing is presented in a simple and matter-of-fact way and somehow that makes the crimes feel even cooler and cleverer.
I noticed that some characters would be called by their surnames and some by their given names. I understand that this was due to the readers’ relationship with each of the characters. For example, we knew the police officers in the context of their professions, so we addressed them by their surnames (Kusanagi, Utsumi, etc.). However, we knew the Kawahata family as a family who ran a business together, so we addressed them all by name (Shigehiro, Setsuko, Narumi). It made sense lol.
Characters
Manabu Yukawa
Yukawa’s never really the main character in his novels, but he is the main character of these novels. He’s never even officially a police consultant. He’s just always at the periphery of the cases. He doesn’t even join in on investigations. He just makes his own observations, does his own experiments, and comes to his own conclusions. In previous books, he would relay them back to Kusanagi.
In this novel, Yukawa built a friendship with Kyohei on the train ride to Hari Cove. Yukawa had been invited to comment on the mining panel. From Narumi’s observations, he was neutral, not caring for the corporate grandiosity of the mining organizations, but also not averse to scientific development. Through conversation with Yukawa, Narumi found herself gaining a more balanced appreciation of the Hari Cove developments as well. While not with the panels, Yukawa did experiments and helped Kyohei with his homework.
When Yukawa first had any inkling of what had happened, he had told Kusanagi to tread very carefully because it would create big changes in someone’s life. With the way he was speaking, I had expected Kyohei to be involved somehow, and I kept waiting for it until the very end.
I think Yukawa withheld the truth from the police because he felt it would be traumatizing for Kyohei to find out at that age that he was responsible for Tsukahara’s death, though of course he did it unknowingly. In return for his silence, he asked Narumi to help Kyohei if he ever finally understood what he had done and needed to know why he did it. I think this emphasized that Yukawa was not a police detective, and simply just a civilian with the expertise to solve cases. Unlike a police detective, Yukawa did not consider what was morally right or just. He only cared for Kyohei’s wellbeing. So I guess this is almost the first time in the series that we see Yukawa’s inner values more than that of curiosity.
Narumi Kawahata
Narumi was raised as the daughter of Setsuko and Shigehiro, though biologically she was the daughter of Setsuko and Senba. I think Higashino wanted to portray her as a kind of neutral character, one who only cared for the wellbeing of Hari Cove. The trajectory of her character was that she started to find Yukawa annoying, but also that there might have been more to her devotion to Hari Cove.
As a youth, she had killed Nobuko Miyake. Shigehiro had hinted towards Narumi not being his daughter when he was drunk but that was never mentioned again. When Nobuko mentioned this sore spot, Narumi flew into a rage and killed Nobuko. She then went into shock while Setsuko and Senba covered it up for her.
Narumi soon moved to Hari Cove with her parents where she started a new life. She had received a painting of Hari Cove from Senba and that kind of became her new motive in life.
There were some romantic subplots that were set up for Narumi but they didn’t go anywhere, nor did they need to. The point of them was just to flesh out the setting. Several people had crushes on Narumi, namely Sawamura, her fellow advocate for Hari Cove, and Nishiguchi, a police officer in Hari Cove who had been Narumi’s classmate. Yukawa had mentioned many times that Narumi didn’t seem the kind of lady who’d be so invested in Hari Cove, which perhaps implied that she was kind of a glamourous city girl. And that led Yukawa to believe that she was protecting Hari Cove for something else, which ended up being Senba.
I mentioned before that I felt unfulfilled that Narumi did not answer for her crimes. We never once even saw her exhibit guilt for the murder or for Senba taking the fall. But I now understand that that was because if she ever did take responsibility for the crime, then she would have wasted Senba’s sacrifice. In the Devotion of Suspect X, when the murderer turned herself in, the man who helped her screamed in rage because all he had done was to protect her, and now they were both in prison instead of only one of them. Narumi was respecting Senba’s love for her by staying out of jail. She had to be ignorant of any connection to Senba, and return, the only thing she could do was take care of Hari Cove for him, a place he had always found beautiful.
Setsuko Kawahata
Setsuko was Narumi’s mother and Shigehiro’s wife. She’d met Senba while being a hostess, and he had introduced her to a new job as a cook, where she met Shigehiro. It seemed that while Shigehiro was courting her, she still had Senba in her heart, and that was why she slept with him once to get him out of her mind and heart forever. When Senba confronted Setsuko about Narumi being his, she denied it, though her face was tearful and sorrowful, which confirmed the truth.
When Narumi murdered Nobuko, Setsuko called up Senba and they worked on their plan. It was never a question of whether they would protect Narumi, it was imperative that they did as her parents. As part of protecting Narumi, Setsuko would never acknowledge any relationship with Senba, though we found out that Shigehiro knew. Tsukahara had come to Hari Cove to ask Setsuko to let Senba see Narumi. Though she was moved, she could only feign ignorance to continue protecting Narumi.
Setsuko was not involved in Tsukahara’s murder, only the movement of the body. However, I felt a sense of resignation from her. No matter what, she would just take the fall. It was easier on the family if she did. She knew that the crimes of the past would catch up to her, she might as well pay her dues now if only they would continue to protect Narumi.
Shigehiro Kawahata
Shigehiro was Setsuko’s husband, and to the world, he was Narumi’s father. He’d long ago found out that Narumi was not his child. Perhaps he’d added the days up. When his coworkers said that Narumi didn’t look like him, it was a slap in the face. I think he resented Setsuko for it, though he wouldn’t say it out loud (when sober).
It was implied that Shigehiro had heard the conversation between Setsuko and Tsukahara, and he wanted to get rid of Tsukahara to keep the secret of Narumi not being his child. When he went out to set fireworks with Kyohei, he’d asked Kyohei to cover openings in the house with wet carboard. His leg was not so good, so that was why he asked Kyohei. I wonder if Shigehiro had purposely asked Kyohei so that Kyohei could take the fall in case anyone got that far in the confession, or whether he truly couldn’t climb up because of his leg. I forgot what Shigehiro’s profession had been, but he was an engineer and it was implied that he would have understood what covering the chimney with wet cardboard would have done. If I recall correctly, Yukawa and Kyohei had also discussed the properties of wet paper/cardboard, so that was meant to clue us in.
Shigehiro intended to continue hiding the crime, but when the police got close, he confessed to moving the body, but not to the murder. The police’s official stance was that it was an equipment failure that led to the carbon monoxide poisoning, though the forensic scientists could not recreate the accident (because they did not figure out the wet cardboard covering the chimney).
I think Shigehiro would have preferred not going to jail at all, and I don’t think he really had the same intentions of protection Narumi as Setsuko and Senba did. But the next best thing was that he was not convicted of murder and nly for moving the body.
Kyohei
Kyohei was the boy that Yukawa met on the train to Hari Cove. Kyohei had told Yukawa about the inn he was staying at, and that was how Yukawa came to stay at the same inn.
From the beginning, we found out that his parents were not very attentive to him. He was kind of reluctant to go to Hari Cove because it wasn’t very exciting but also he could feel that he was somewhat of a nuisance to his parents. They never put the time in to teach him, they just wanted him out of the way.
While in Hari Cove, Kyohei spent a lot of time with Yukawa because there wasn’t much else to do. Yukawa tried to get Kyohei interested in science and math, doing experiments with him and helping him with his summer homework. By the end of the novel, we saw that Kyohei had more of an interest in science and also some more academic discipline as well. He got his parents to let him stay one more day by insisting that he needed to learn how to do his homework himself.
When Kyohei had gone out to set fireworks with his uncle, his uncle had told him not to tell anyone about the fact that he had covered up the chimney. Kyohei either hadn’t realized or didn’t want to realize until the end of the novel the implications of what he had done. He’d asked his father to extend their stay in Hari Cove one more day because Kyohei wanted to talk to Yukawa about it, because Yukawa was an adult he trusted. Yukawa would not tell him what he’d done, because he knew it would be traumatizing to Kyohei at that age to know he’d killed someone. But he told Kyohei that he wasn’t alone, perhaps referring to himself and also Narumi when he grew old enough to be able to understand what he’d done.
Motoya Sawamura
Sawamura was a local activist who’d hung out with Narumi a lot at the beginning, as they were attending meetings together. He was a little more combative and talkative at these discussions. Narumi knew that he had a crush on her, and when he suggested to her that she be his assistant, she put it off.
Sawamura had initially told the police that when Shigehiro and Setsuko had discovered that Tsukahara was missing, he drove around with Shigehiro looking for Tsukahara. What tipped Yukawa off was that he was driving a pickup truck with only two seats, instead of a van that could seat another person. So basically if Sawamura and Shigehiro had gone looking for Tsukahara in a pickup and found him, he could only sit in the open trunk. So that clued us in to the fact that Sawamura was fishy.
After Setsuko and Shigehiro were arrested, Sawamura turned himself in as well. Though Sawamura wouldn’t have known about the murder being a murder.
Masatsugu Tsukahara
Tsukahara was a star detective in Tokyo. Even after retirement he was hung up on Senba’s case because he knew things didn’t add up and he realized that Senba was covering for someone. He found Senba when he was homeless and struggling and put him in a hospital where he continued to ensure that Senba was looked after. Eventually, Senba told the truth to Tsukahara.
Initially the story was pointing to Tsukahara going to Hari Cove to further investigate Senba, but we later discovered that he’d actually gone on Senba’s behalf, to ask that Narumi see him one last time before he died, as he was very ill from cancer.
Setsuko turned him down, but the unfortunate thing was that Shigehiro had heard the conversation. If Shigehiro hadn’t known, I think Tsukahara would still have been alive.
Hidetoshi Senba
Senba was initially introduced to us as “Senba the murderer,” somewhat of a local legend of Hari Cove. He’d had a house on the east side of town but it was either up for sale or already sold. He had a wife he loved, and it was implied that his infidelity was one-time-only. She had cancer and he took care of her until her death. She’d painted the beautiful painting of Hari Cove.
Senba had feelings for Setsuko and they’d had sex when she’d gotten drunk once. From that night came Narumi. When Senba approached Setsuko, she denied it though her actions confirmed his suspicions that Narumi was his daughter. He’d only asked Setsuko for a photo of Narumi and he would leave them alone forever, and he stuck to that promise. It was Setsuko who sought him out when she needed help for Narumi’s murder of Nobuko.
Senba acted suspiciously, even resisting a bit, so that the police would believe that he truly was the murderer, though he never truly convinced Tsukhara. After he served his sentence, he had a job as a trash collector but then the company he worked for folded and he was on the streets. He went to various soup kitchens and grew very ill. Tsukahara found him and brought him to a hospital. The hospital owed Tsukahara a favour so that was why Senba got to stay there for free. He had cancer and was quite sick.
When Kusanagi and Utsumi interviewed him, they couldn’t get much out of him. When Yukawa interviewed him, we saw strong responses from Senba. Yukawa had guessed that Narumi was his daughter, though he only described her as the lady who was working hard to protect Hari Cove. Yukawa had taken a photo of Narumi (against her will) so that he could give it to Senba, who stored it with the baby photo he had of Narumi.
Shunpei Kusanagi
Kusanagi was the police detective. With Utsumi, he conducted the investigation in Tokyo into the Kawahata family as well as Senba. However, in this mystery, Yukawa did not share the whole truth with him because he was afraid for Kyohei. Kusanagi did not push though, as I think he respected Yukawa as a friend. If he couldn’t get to his own conclusions he couldn’t ask Yukawa to do his own work for him.
Themes
I guess the big theme in this mystery was protecting others and covering for their crimes.
We saw this obviously with Senba taking the fall for Narumi’s crime. It derailed his life and put him in a bad state. And yet, Setsuko and Narumi could not help him because it would compromise the false narrative they’d hurt so hard to draw up.
In order to protect Kyohei, Yukawa had to keep the secret of Tsukahara’s murder, but also of Senba’s murder. It was two layers of crime that had to continue to be kept under wraps. If Kyohei’s part in Tsukahara’s murder was uncovered, then Shigehiro’s relationship with Tsukahara would be investigated and Narumi’s crime would be uncovered. If Narumi’s crime was uncovered first, then the police would keep digging into their relationship with Tsukahara and Kyohei’s crime would be uncovered.
I think it’s interesting that this novel almost doesn’t even care to look into the morality of doing such a thing. Even I instinctively felt that it would have been more just for Narumi to turn herself in and for Shigehiro’s true crime to be revealed. But then we take a closer look at the sacrifices of the family and we wonder if we gain anything by doing so. What do we gain if Narumi turns herself in? Senba’s already served his time, the secret of her parentage will be out, and Narumi will lose years of her life to the prison system. Perhaps some may consider that unnecessary. What do we gain if Kyohei knows that he helped murder Tsukahara? Trauma with knowing that he helped kill someone, and also distrust towards his relatives. It’s an interesting question that Higashino has raised in this book.
Overall
The more I talked about the book, the more I appreciated its differences with the earlier novels. Higashino’s become a crime novel that I enjoy a lot and I look forward to continuing to read his work!