It's Tuesday, and you know what that means - it's another edition of #NewTitleTuesday, where we take a quick look at a title that's hitting the shelves this week and deserves a shot at getting on your hold lists!
December is a tough time for new books, oddly enough. Most of the holiday retail push starts mid-November-ish, culminating in Black Friday. But by mid-December, the retail wave has already crested, and publishers are focused on promoting their back catalogs to coincide with all those best-of and end-of-year lists that pop up seemingly everywhere you look. However, for the dedicated book fan, this time of year can be a real opportunity for some overlooked gems lost in the wave of bestsellers.
Today, our #NewTitleTuesday pick is SILENT PARADE by Keigo Higashimo, translated from the Japanese by Giles Murray. The classic traditional mystery format is extremely popular in Japan, and Higashimo is one of their more popular mystery practitioners, winning several of Japan's most prestigious literary awards, with several of his novels also made into hit movies. His works have gained attention over this side of the Pacific, too, and he is best known for his Detective Galileo series, with SILENT PARADE being his most recent.
Detective Galileo is the nickname of a physics professor brought in by his police detective friends when they're in need of help. Here, the police have their eye on a suspect in multiple murders who ever-so-conveniently dies during a Tokyo religious festival. The slightly eccentric professor is brought in to offer a different perspective, and with a canny observation here and a perfectly-worded question there, he begins to unravel the tangled threads that the police have overlooked. The plot unfolds in a classic whodunnit fashion, encountering several suspects, each with a specific motive for the crime, but only one with the means. The series doesn't need to be read in any sort of order, so readers can easily jump in here to get started, but his earlier DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X, also featuring Detective Galileo, is a standout. Higashimo's classic puzzlers will entice readers that who need a change of pace from mysteries that read more like thrillers or for readers looking for something sort of cozy but not too cozy, if you know what we mean. This should hit the sweet spot.
We hope you enjoy!