On the Nihonbashi Bridge in Tokyo stands the statue of a mythic beast – a kirin. One evening a man staggers onto the bridge and collapses beneath the winged creature. The patrolman on watch goes to rouse the man, who he presumes to be drunk – only to discover that the man had been stabbed in the chest. He is dead. Meanwhile, a young man named Yashima is injured in a car accident nearby while trying to flee from the police. Found on him is the wallet of the murdered man. But is he actually responsible for the crime? What is his connection to the victim? And why did the dying man drag himself from the crime scene to the Nihonbashi Bridge? Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga must piece together the answers to all of these questions in order to find the killer, but each answer he finds seems to throw up more questions …
My Rating:
☆☆☆
Dates Read: December 22 2022 - February 12 2023
Initial Publication Date: March 2011
Translation Published: December 2022
Author Origin: Japan (Osaka)
Major Characters:
Detective Kyoichiro Kaga
…I cannot remember the other characters, which clearly doesn’t bode well for my overall impression of the book.
I could not get into this one, for some reason! I think I just wasn’t as interested in the case presented in this book, compared to previous Higashino novels, and even the big twist at the end fell somewhat flat for me. Of course, it was far from bad, but it didn’t exactly knock my socks off, either. It was just…I hesitate to say…somewhat boring.