This is the second police procedural by Higashino that I have read, and whereas the whodunnit aspect is not as intricate as in other nationalities, the inclusion of Japanese culture and personality makes for an intriguing experience.

The body of a young man who was the boyfriend of a woman named Sonoka Shimauchi is discovered floating in the bay. Though she filed missing persons reports with the police, when they late look to question he she's disappeared along with an older woman who writes children's books and is a family friend. On top of that, the investigation brings out another potential suspect in the form of someone Detectives Kusanagi knows personally. And even further complicating things, "Detective Galileo" acts a bit at odds with helping the investigation, especially when it comes up that he may have a connection to one of the people of interest.
Another engrossing, enjoyable mystery from Higashino. As has happened before, the killer is revealed way before the end of the book, yet the true motivations and mechanics of what led to and how the murder was committed isn't fully fleshed out until the latter chapters of the novel. Early on I correctly who the killer would be, though it took awhile to figure out who that actually was. And there certainly were a couple of extra twists towards the end, one of which I definitely didn't see coming.

cultural-heritage, due-diligence, mystery-fiction, surprises, suspense, crime-thriller, abusive-spouse, Japan, detective, determination, family-drama, family-dynamics, family-history, law-enforcement, procedural, relationship-issues, relationships, relatives, missing-persons, secrets, lies, murder-investigation, unpleasant-victims*****

The helix represents the insane complexity of the tale as well as the role of DNA in digging for the truth. There's an orphanage, a devoted mother, several abusive men, a woman who has risen in status, a body washed up on the shore, Tokyo Municipal PD Homicide Division, and a professor of physics who has assisted in solving several cases. Unravelling the truth takes time and perseverance. Another excellent exercise in logic and more.
Thanks to translator Giles Murray for turning the Japanese into English.
I requested and received a free temporary EARC from St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books via NetGalley. Thank you! Pub Date Dec 17, 2024
#DetectiveGalileoBk5 #Procedural #Japan

This is the third mystery I've read by Keigo Higashino and it's my favorite. This book has it all: orphans and orphanages, sudden deaths and murder, generous mother figures, and enough plot twists to make me reel. All of this is set in Japan, mostly in Tokyo.

Main character Detective Kusanagi needs help with a murder. He consults a friend he's relied upon before: physicist Manabu Yukawa, nicknamed Detective Galileo. Sure enough, he helps to lead the detective in the right direction. And yet, Kusanagi has the feeling his friend is holding something back. What on earth could it be?

"Invisible Helix" moves quickly and has a very satisfying ending. No cliffhangers here! Author Keigo Higashino develops unusual, interesting plots and his stories are page-turners. "Invisible Helix" is the fifth book of the Detective Galileo series. I wish I'd read them in order, but I unknowingly read Book 3 first, not knowing it was part of a series. So, I can say from experience that they do stand alone well.

The intricate plot, combined with Galileo’s sharp mind and the emotional depth of the characters, kept me hooked from start to finish. It’s a compelling, intellectually stimulating mystery that feels both fresh and deeply engaging.

Invisible Helix is a story of domestic abuse and, ultimately, murder. There is so much more to this story than that one sentence. The mystery is, who committed that murder?

It’s a story of several families and their interrelationships. The story is extremely well developed; the author excels at keeping the multitudes of details, clues, hints, and innuendos from becoming confusing. I hated to see it end. I especially enjoyed how all the strings were tied up at the end with a very satisfying conclusion.

Thank you to Mr Higashino and St Martins Publishing for the opportunity to read and review Invisible Helix. I enjoyed it immensely.

I continue to be a big fan of the Detective Galileo series and was excited when this book was translated into English and available to read. This is a multi-generational story and did not end up the way I thought it would. You learn more about different family relationships and the backstories of some of the characters, but it would also be fine to read as a stand alone.

The book is written with narrative and time shifts, but it's never confusing or hard to follow. What seems like a straightforward situation - a murder of a man who is then dumped in the river - is revealed to be increasingly more complicated with ties to the past (including Galileo's past). It all ties together beautifully and while I was able to guess the nature of the solution, there was an additional twist that I did not predict.

Invisible Helix was a good detective story with a lot of false leads and suspicious characters. I enjoyed the unraveling of the mysterious backgrounds of the suspects as well as the glimpse into crime solving in Japan.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Invisible Helix.

I've been reading this series for several years and look forward when a new book comes out.

This is a no-frills, easy to understand, straight to the point mystery with no drama or silly twists.

Invisible Helix is also the most personal mystery featuring Professor Galileo as he's dealing with ailing parents, reconnecting with his birth mother, and a case that demonstrates the lengths people will go to protect the ones they love.

I enjoy novels, especially mysteries with just the right amount of character development (not easy to do) but learning more about the professor's background is insightful, explaining his personality and behaviors.

I do agree with reviewer(s) that the English translation is cringeworthy.

Some phrases and dialogue made me laugh and roll my eyes. No one in the US talks like this!

Of the 11 books I've read by Keigo Higashino, this felt the most simple and straightforward, but as always it was an enjoyable read :) While most of his books have a strong focus on the characters, Invisible Helix is definitely centered around the characters' relationships over the mystery/crime itself. Any of the other books in the Detective Galileo series might be better to start with for someone looking for a more complex mystery, but this book fits in well with the rest of the series!

As usual, Higashino presents a cast of characters with unexpected relationships to each other. This one was a quick snappy read (flowed well) and also humanized Yukawa in a way that many of the other Higashino books don’t.

As a Higashino fan I recommend it.

Higashino never disappoints with his mysteries. This one is fantastic in that we get so much more about Yukawa here. More of his background, family, and childhood and it all weaves easily into the characters found in Invisible Helix. There's something to be said for how Higashino delivers the information necessary for any reader to 'figure out' what happened. But, with all great mysteries, the mystery itself is only a part of the novel.

This is well worth your read if you've enjoyed previous Detective Galileo novels. I would suggest one would want to have read the earlier ones, though, as much of the narrative here is discovering who Detective Galileo is, right along with him.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review of this book.

This was my first book by Mr. Higashino. Although I finished this book in 2 sittings, I really struggled to relate to any of the characters. I love Japan, but perhaps its Japan's small island size, but the perspectives seem so small to my American sensibilities. I wanted to love this book but I have to say it was just ok. However, if you enjoy Japanese thrillers, police dramas and TV shows, then I would think this would be a very enjoyable book. For me, this book was 3.5 stars.

Another winner from Keigo Higashino! Fantastic characters, languid pacing, part mystery, part police procedural. A fast paced story

This was my 13th book by Keigo Higashino! I would have to say it’s a fast read like pretty much all of his books, and pretty good overall. Some of the stories confused me at first, but it all came together (with some twists!) in the end.

Notable lines:

“However, you need to be aware of something. Telling the whole truth will only make things worse for everybody.”

"I just wondered if it's going to work out. Life's tough. Most people don't have the luxury of only doing the work they want to do."

“The truth is, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Decades have passed. Since then, I’ve met all sorts of people all living life in different ways. Now I can see what a fool I was back then. No one can live their life alone. It’s thanks to many other people that I am the person who I am today . . . “

[Blurb goes here]

I'm a big fan of Keigo Higashino. I have read all of his Detective Kyochiro Kaga and Detective Galileo (Manabu Yukawa) novels (the English-translated ones).

This new novel gives us a deeper glimpse into Professor Manabu Yukawa's past, making it a great read.

Keigo Higashino always gives 'life' to his characters through robust backstories that carefully unravel their deepest secrets and motivations.

In this story, Detective Kusanagi, Manabu Yukawa's best friend (if you could call their relationship 'friendship'), finds the body of Ryota Uetsuji, who washed ashore in Tokyo Bay; he was shot in the back. His live-in girlfriend, Sonoka, reported him missing days before.

As the story progresses, Detective Kusanagi contacts his friend. There's something that Yukawa can do to help with the investigation, but the Professor refuses in principle. Still, something odd happens: someone seems to be helping the suspects avoid the police. "Could it be Yukawa?" Kusanagi wonders.

While I enjoyed the novel to no end, I was a bit dissatisfied with it for two reasons:

1. I knew who the culprit was, some 30% into the story.
2. This is the first time the famous Detective Galileo seems to "guess" who's behind the murder.

Still, this is Keigo Higashino, and every one of his novels is well worth your time.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

A complexly plotted mystery, aided by character depth not often found in such novels. Readers are left to puzzle about identities and motivations along with Detective Kusanagi and his team as they seek to solve the murder of an abusive young man who seems to have deserved his fate. And then there is the question of the relationship of his abused girlfriend to several other older women we meet. Despite all the police's hard work, as is usual for this series, Professor Yukawa, the brilliant physicist, taking time off from caring for his ailing parents, solves the murder and other mysteries with seeming ease, largely keeping his police friends in the dark.
There has always been something disturbing to me about characters like Yukawa (and Sherlock Holmes), whose intelligence and moral consciousness so far outweigh that of the average person, let alone a dedicated police investigative team. While the attraction of a super rational detective is considerable, Yukawa's decision at the book's end about what he will reveal and who will go punished or unpunished all rubbed me the wrong way. That he is called Detective Galileo in this series, suggests he should know better, as opposed to feeling he knows better.

Detective Galileo is back in Keigo Higashino's “Invisible Helix”, another fine Japanese mystery set in and around Tokyo.

We start off with a bit of history, an unwed mother with little hope of a career and life, of a girl being left at the gates of an orphanage with nothing but a handmade doll in her basket. Zooming to the present day, the body of Ryota Uetsuji is found floating offshore with a bullet hole in its head. Uetsuji was reported missing by his live-in girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi, a week before, but now when the police come to find her she has disappeared, leaving with a suitcase. Even though she has an alibi for the time of the murder, an airtight alibi, Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi believe she is somehow connected to the killing, especially when stories of domestic abuse start to surface.

Digging deeper, we soon learn of Sonoka’s ties to the orphanage where her mother was raised and where she ended up working. We also find an older lady who wrote childrens’ books, a close friend of Sonoka’s mother, who it seems is helping Sonoka and is also an acquaintance of “Detective Galileo”, the physicist Manabu Yukawa who has helped Kusanagi and Utsumi in the past but seems even more reluctant than usual to provide any information, although he is heavily involved. Throw in a mysterious older woman who is the owner of a hostess club and has her own reasons for finding Sonoka, and the detectives have an intricate web of old secrets and motives to unravel to catch a killer.

Another intricate puzzle box of past histories and decisions that have a profound effect on the present. Yukawa’s hidden side is exposed a bit more as we see him caring for his aging parents and we learn more about his personal history (a lot more really). This latest novel seems a bit rushed, less character development, and is a quick read. As I have said before, I think I enjoy the Kyoichiro Kaga series a bit more than Detective Galileo, there's a stronger sense of place in them, which is part of the joy of these novels.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

A Japanese mystery novel that delves into the intricate world of genetic engineering and its ethical implications. The story revolves around a series of mysterious events and crimes linked to groundbreaking genetic research. The protagonist, who is often a detective or a scientist in Higashino's novels, must navigate through a complex web of corporate secrets, scientific discoveries, and human motivations to uncover the truth. The investigation reveals intricate connections between the crime and hidden historical events, threading together elements that appear almost invisible. The novel explores themes of identity, the power of genetic information, and the moral dilemmas faced by those who wield such power. Overall, "Invisible Helix" is a gripping tale that combines scientific intrigue with Higashino's signature style of mystery and suspense.

Invisible Helix is a perfect title. The reader has to pull out all the strands to untangle the mystery. Reading this book is a process and the first third is slow and confusing. However there comes a point where the story jumps from police procedural to amateur sleuths and the plot and pacing makes sense.
Everyone has a story to tell, especially unwed mothers. And everyone has a lie to tell, especially unwed mothers. Mothers will go to improbable lengths to protect their child, whether the child is biological or not.
The layers of Helix peel like an onion. There is no one simple conclusion to any of the stories but the murder is eventually solved, to no one's satisfaction.
My struggle with Helix is the translation which is often stilted and uses English phrases that are awkwardly out of true. The story is rich and layered, the dialogue is trite or corny. I just can't quite reconcile two brilliant middle-aged men concluding a conversation at a funeral with a fist bump.
I was provided this ARC from NetGallery for an independent review.