A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino (Detective Kaga, #3) * * * * *

A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino is the third Detective Kaga novel to be translated into English, though the series connection is loose enough that it can be read as a standalone. I read it quite a while ago, and what has stayed with me is not a tidy sequence of events, but a mood, a structure, and a very specific emotional aftertaste.

First and foremost, this is a Tokyo novel. Not in a glossy, tourist sense, but in the way it moves through neighbourhoods, streets, stations, and everyday locations with quiet confidence. The city is not a backdrop; it is a constant presence. I remember repeatedly opening Google Maps while reading, tracing routes, pinning locations, mentally filing places away for a future trip. That sense of physical reality is one of the book’s strongest qualities. You feel oriented. You know where you are. The city breathes around the story.

Detective Kaga himself, however, barely lingers in memory. He functions less as a vivid character and more as a conduit. He asks the right questions, arrives where he needs to arrive, and connects the necessary threads, but he does not dominate the narrative. This is not a personality driven detective story. If you are looking for a forceful central figure with quirks, sharp edges, or emotional presence, this may feel thin. Kaga exists to move the story forward, not to claim it.

The plot is intricate to the point of near overgrowth. Layers are added patiently, then folded back on themselves. Perspectives shift. Red herrings multiply. By the time the solution emerges, there is a strange sense of disorientation: you have learned an enormous amount, met many people, understood many private griefs, and yet it is easy to forget how simple the starting point once seemed. Talking about the mechanics without spoilers is difficult, but the experience is familiar if you have read Higashino before. The puzzle expands outward rather than tightening inward.

What ultimately defines the book, at least in my memory, is the emotional logic of the resolution. The motivation behind the crime feels banal. Small. Almost offensively insufficient. And that is precisely the point. Higashino’s murders are rarely driven by grand passions or operatic evil. They come from ordinary failures, quiet resentments, moments where someone chooses poorly and cannot undo it. The pain, by contrast, spreads widely. Innocent people carry it. Lives bend under it. A man who was not monstrous loses his life.

That imbalance is unsettling, and deliberately so. The book leaves you with the sense that no explanation can ever justify the damage done. Understanding does not equal absolution. Resolution does not equal relief.

I would recommend A Death in Tokyo to readers who enjoy layered mysteries, urban atmosphere, and crime fiction that prioritises emotional consequence over cleverness. It is not a book that dazzles with its detective, nor one that ends with satisfaction in the traditional sense. What it offers instead is quieter and heavier: a reminder that the reasons behind violence are often painfully small, and that knowing them does nothing to make the loss easier to bear.