[Book Review] The Devotion of Suspect X

It took me eight days to complete the book, I’d have done so much sooner had there been enough time for me. Some of them were asking me how I’m finding so much time to read so many books – I am just following the advice of one Mr. Jairam Mohan a senior blogger/reader at my organization. He had said to me one time that “Read whenever you get a chance”. I took that advice literally that I was reading in-between the water breaks and lunch breaks too! So, my success for completing the Goodreads reading challenge this year is only because of his advice. Thank you Jairam ji! :)

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Very few authors have this ability to leave you spellbound. Keigo Higashino is certainly one of those authors. The Devotion of Suspect X is a thriller novel written by him and has already been praised as one of the best thrillers written.

This is the first time I’m reading a translated novel (This is a Japanese novel translated to English). I had hard time placing the names with the correct sex! A couple of names were too similar that I almost mistook one for the other. I’m talking about Yukawa and Yasuko here. But as I progressed with the book it became easy to place the names.

Murder mystery thrillers are good because usually we were never told who the killer is, until the last page of that book. But, revealing who the killer is in the first few chapters of the book and still go on to make it interesting to read is definitely a challenging task. This book has exceeded my expectations – what I had formed after reading a blogger's review.

I’m a mathematics student so I naturally loved all the references and the mathematician Ishigami himself. What a character he is! Author had managed to show him the brilliant he is right from the beginning, slowed (hided) his progress in-between and then the big reveal! Surely no one could hate this Ishigami. Talk about a character development and you could practically refer Ishigami! What a transformation he goes through! I especially liked this conversation during a mathematics class (sorry, it’s a bit long):

“Hey, Teach, aren’t there universities that don’t require a math test to get in?” one of the students was saying. “Why should us guys who are going to those schools have to pass math?”

Ishigami looked in the direction of the student, a boy named Morioka. He was leaning back in his chair, scratching his head and looking around at the other students for support. He was a short kid, but he filled the role of class crime boss—even Ishigami, who didn’t have this bunch for homeroom, knew his reputation. The boy already had a long history of warnings for riding to school on a motorbike, which was strictly forbidden.

“Are you going to art school, Morioka?” Ishigami asked.

“Well, I mean … if I do go to university, it’ll be one without a math exam for sure. Not that I plan on going. Besides, I’m not taking the optional math class next year, so what’s my grade this year matter? Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m thinking about you, too, Teach. Can’t be much fun teaching with idiots like me in the class. So, I was thinking, maybe we could kind of come to an understanding about this. An agreement between adults, like.”

That last line got a laugh from the class. Ishigami chuckled wryly. “If you’re so worried on my account, then pass your make-up exam. It’s only differential and integral calculus. That can’t be too hard.”

Morioka scoffed loudly. He crossed his legs off to the side of his chair. “What good’s differential and integral calculus gonna do me? It’s a waste of time.”

Ishigami had turned to the blackboard to begin an explanation of some of the trickier problems on the year-end exam, but Morioka’s comment made him stop and turn around. This wasn’t the kind of thing he could let slide. “I hear you like motorbikes, Morioka. Ever watched a race?”

Morioka nodded, clearly taken aback by the sudden question.

“Well, do racers drive their bikes at a set speed? No, they’re constantly adjusting their speed based on the terrain, the way the wind’s blowing, their race strategy, and so on. They need to know in an instant where to hold back and where to accelerate in order to win. Do you follow?”

“Yeah, sure, I follow. But what’s that got to do with math?”

“Well, exactly how much they accelerate at a given time is the derivative of their speed at that exact moment. Furthermore, the distance they travel is the integral of their changing speed. In a race, the bikes all have to run roughly the same distance, so in determining who wins and who loses, the speed differential becomes very important. So you see, differential and integral calculus is very important.”

“Yeah,” Morioka said after a confused pause, “but a racer doesn’t have to think about all that. What do they care about differentials and integrals? They win by experience and instinct.”

“I’m sure they do. But that isn’t true for the support team for those racers. They run detailed simulations over and over to find the best places to accelerate—that’s how they work out a strategy. And in order to do that, they use differential and integral calculus. Even if they don’t know it, the computer software they’re using does.”

“So why not leave the mathematics to whoever’s making the software?”

“We could do that, but what if it was you who had to make the software, Morioka?”

Morioka leaned further back in his chair. “Me? Write software? I don’t think so.”

“Even if you don’t become a software engineer, someone else in this class might. That’s why we study mathematics. That’s why we have this class. You should know that what I’m teaching here is only the tip of the iceberg—a doorway into the world of mathematics. If you don’t even know where the door is, how can you ever expect to be able to walk through it? Of course, you don’t have to walk through it unless you want to. All I’m testing here is whether or not you know where the doorway is. I’m giving you choices.”

Yukawa is an equivalent partner in this book for Ishigami and his logical deductions are too good. Detective Kusanagi wasn’t foreshadowed as well – he has his moments. Only thing that wasn’t making much sense is the character Misato (teen age daughter of Yasuko). I felt like she could have given some more pages as to what she does in the end and why.

At the end of the novel you can’t help but feel sad for Ishigami – his cry is just too haunting. A must read for all the thriller lovers.

[Book Review] The Protocol

I was hunting for a good free eBook – my recent fascination with it. I came across the author J Robert Kennedy and his willingness to give away not one, not two, but five of his books. All you have to do is just subscribe to his page (and I think you can unsubscribe as soon as you’re done with the download)!

The Protocol is his first “James Acton” thriller – as said in Goodreads. Looks like he went ahead and wrote sixteen James Actor thrillers! Wow, that was quite an achievement in about six years! James Acton is an archelogical professor – you can very well compare him to the Robert Langdon. But, even when I was reading the book (and after completing it), I found the “role” of one Professor James Acton to be very less than the “Bravo” team who were ordered to take him out. Let’s first read what Goodreads has to say about this book:

For two thousand years the Triarii have protected us, influencing history from the crusades to the discovery of America. Descendent from the Roman Empire, they pervade every level of society, and are now in a race with our own government to retrieve an ancient artifact thought to have been lost forever.

Caught in the middle is archaeology professor James Acton, relentlessly hunted by the elite Delta Force, under orders to stop at nothing to possess what he has found, and the Triarii, equally determined to prevent the discovery from falling into the wrong hands.

With his students and friends dying around him, Acton flees to find the one person who might be able to help him, but little does he know he may actually be racing directly into the hands of an organization he knows nothing about…

First read of the blurb and I was hooked. I was assuming a ‘DaVinci Code’ kinda thriller, but absolutely disappointed with the book. The author had done little research about the Triarii and the Crystal Skull both seems to be the important things in this book. And as I said, for a “James Acton” thriller, he had very little ‘paper time’ (well I don’t know how to say that for books, for movies they say screen time). The Delta Force and Triarii mentioned in the blurb took the cake in this book rather than James Acton.

The book starts slow, almost having no connectivity between the first eight or so chapters (all starts from a different place/situation) and it take sometime to get a clear picture of the story. Sometimes a character, last read in say 30th chapter, comes suddenly in 80th chapter, leaving you asking yourself “Who the hell is this guy?” There were a few loose ends that were not tied, probably left open for his future books.

The only upside of this book is the Delta Force. Scenes involving them were fascinating. The high end chases and bullet sounds keeps us hooked to the book. A lot of things could have been done differently and the backstory to 1212 were just for the sake of it. Nothing useful came out from those chapters other than a mere mention in the future dialogues. I rated this book 3 stars only because of the action scenes and the justification of the villain.

Image Courtesy: Goodreads