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This review does not contain spoilers

Thanks to a recommendation  of C, in our book reading group, I finished reading Silent Parade by Keigo Hagashino. The book stars 'Detective Galileo'- a detective outside of the police force who has a full time other vocation (Physics research) but from time to time steps in to help out the Best of Tokyo with his perspicacity.  

Evaluating it from a whodunit genre, it was a good read. The plot was replete with twists and turns. However, I think I am currently not in a state of mind to really cling on to the handle as a whodunit train goes through these curves, and fell off the train once or twice. I think it's entirely my own current state of mind- and nothing to do with the book itself. However, there is one genuine gripe with the book I have- I felt that some of the smoothness in the writing was lost in the translation, and the writing at times felt a bit staggered. 

I am reading a whodunit after a long, long time. Maybe more than a decade. I have not watched a single 'detective' show, either, in the past decade. Yes, none of Grey's Anatomy, True Detective, Dexter, and so on. So coming from that perspective, I felt that in this book, the crime felt real. Given the nature of crime, stalking of an 'attractive' woman and subsequent violence  (that is not a spoiler),  such a crime and such a criminal could be lurking about in any big city. It was somewhat perturbing. This did not feel like an Agathe Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, in which the extinguishing of life through violent crime, and the concomitant impact it had on the society around, was dealt with in passing interest and the true spotlight or focus was always on  the detective's idiosyncrasies and progress of the plot. However, Crime thrillers are such a popular genre of book and tv-show, I suppose the regular consumer of this content is quite comfortable with such crimes being depicted in the book or telly show. To me, it served as some sort of a wake up call , that violent crime can be quite closeby, and has made me increase my vigilance level.  

The book does doff a hat to the legendary whodunits of yesteryear, such as famous capers from Agatha Christies and of Sherlock Holme's, even referring to them at times . For example, one section of the book starts with this quote: 

"It's a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts" - Arthur Conan Doyle, in A Scandal in Bohemia. 

On a side note: The above deductive approach from the master (fictional) detective, Sherlock Holmes, is at odds with what is preached in Consulting. Consulting is explicit about being Hypothesis driven, and then searching for data to confirm or deny the hypothesis. During my times in Consulting, I did think that there is something to be said for the opposite approach too. Well, I should have remembered this quote from the famous short story, and deployed it at an appropriate moment. In fact, my best 'deduction' in Consulting, came from employing such an approach. When I ended up reading an entire public policy book, just to get an idea of the lay of the land. One of the ideas in there was one of the key planks of the solution we proposed to the client, with which they were happy.  

The book interestingly depicts the societal interactions of Japanese suburbia. Pinball, music, video game parlours, parades, etc make an appearance. So it's also a decent peek into Japanese culture. 

Keigo Hagashino is a prolific Whodunit author. His first book, 'Devotion of Suspect X', is supposed to be the inspiration for the Indian movie thriller 'Dhrushyam', which was originally a Malayalam movie and then made into 4 other Indian languages. So, if you ever feel like a Whodunit, do leaf through the works of Hagashino San. 

Labels: Books

# posted by Ashwin Ravikumar @ 6:23 PM