Malice

About

Bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found murdered in his locked home on the night before his planned move to Vancouver. His wife and his best friend discover the body — both with solid alibis. Detective Kaga, who once worked alongside the best friend as a fellow teacher, recognizes something beneath the surface of this apparently straightforward case. What he uncovers is not just a murder but a labyrinth of resentment so deep and so patient that it redefines the concept of motive. Keigo Higashino constructs Malice as a duel between detective and suspect, told through alternating accounts that contradict, revise, and undermine each other. The whodunit is solved early; the real mystery — the why — drives the novel into psychological territory far more disturbing than any crime scene. A mystery about the most dangerous emotion — not rage, not jealousy, but the slow, corrosive malice of someone who has been watching you succeed for decades.