About this item
A popular young girl disappears without a trace, her skeletal remains discovered three years later in the ashes of a burned out house. There's a suspect and compelling circumstantial evidence of his guilt, but no concrete proof. When he isn't indicted, he returns to mock the girl's family. And this isn't the first time he's been suspected of the murder of a young girl, nearly twenty years ago he was tried and released due to lack of evidence. Chief Inspector Kusanagi of the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Police worked both cases.The neighborhood in which the murdered girl lived is famous for an annual street festival, featuring a parade with entries from around Tokyo and Japan. During the parade, the suspected killer dies unexpectedly. His death is suspiciously convenient but the people with all the best motives have rock solid alibis.
About the Author
(Japanese) (Traditional Chinese) (Thai) Keigo Higashino () is one of the most popular and biggest selling fiction authors in Japan - as well known as James Patterson, Dean Koontz or Tom Clancy are in the USA. Born in Osaka, he started writing novels while still working as an engineer at Nippon Denso Co. ?(presently DENSO) . He won the Edogawa Rampo Prize, which is awarded annually to the finest mystery work, in 1985 for the novel H?kago (After School) at age 27. Subsequently, he quit his job and started a career as a writer in Tokyo. In 1999, he won the Mystery Writers of Japan Inc award for the novel (The Secret) , which was translated into English by Kerim Yasar and published by Vertical under the title of in 2004. In 2006, he won the 134th Naoki Prize for . His novels had been nominated five times before winning with this novel. was the second highest selling book in all of Japan - fiction or nonfiction - the year it was published, with over 800,000 copies sold. It won the prestigious Naoki Prize for Best Novel - the Japanese equivalent of the National Book Award and the Man Booker Prize. Made into a motion picture in Japan, spent 4 weeks at the top of the box office and was the third highest?grossing film of the year. Higashino's novels have more movie and TV series adaptations than Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum, and as many as Michael Crichton.
