Overview

When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away?

While Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. As his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced...

SALVATION OF A SAINT is a magnificently complex and page-turning thriller starring international crime fiction's most enigmatic sleuth.This is essential reading for all fans of exceptional crime fiction.

From Booklist

Edgar-nominee Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X, 2011) offers an audacious premise as, in the opening pages, he all but tells us that Ayane Mita is going to poison her husband, Yoshitaka Mashiba. Then Yoshitaka is, indeed, poisoned via arsenic in his coffee. However, Ayane is out of town and well alibied. As mismatched detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi pursue the truth, aided by the prickly, exacting professor Yukawa, we become more and more certain Ayane did it—but, like the detectives, we can’t possibly imagine how it could ever be proved. Has she committed the perfect crime? Despite the Toyko setting, Higashino isn’t interested in atmosphere, and he’s not really interested in plumbing the depths of the characters’ emotional lives, either. Instead, this plays out in a series of interviews, reinterviews, and hypothetical conversations that focus on the smallest nuances of evidence and motive. Readers who prefer guns-drawn action won’t respond, but those who thrill to the cerebral pleasures of deduction will drink it right down . . . keeping a wary eye on their own cups of coffee. --Keir Graff

Review

"Brilliant ... While readers of classic mysteries will be delighted with the elegant solution, the book will also appeal to fans of procedurals that carefully develop the relationships among the investigative team members."
--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"A retro puzzler that recalls Anthony Berkeley’s classic The Poisoned Chocolates Case."
--Kirkus Reviews