Salvation of a Saint

Howdunit, rather than whodunit, appears to be the central question of Edgar-finalist Higashino’s brilliant second mystery featuring Tokyo police detective Manabu Yukawa (after 2011’s The Devotion of Suspect X). After Yoshitaka Mashiba tells his wife, Ayane, that their short marriage is over because she hasn’t become pregnant, Ayane thinks about “the white powder hidden in a sealed plastic bag” and decides that her husband has to die, adding a cryptic “too.” When Ayane leaves town to tend to an ailing parent, her protégé, who’s also her husband’s mistress, stops by to find Mashiba dead of what turns out to be arsenic poisoning. How did the poison enter the victim’s system at a time when the obvious suspect, the scorned wife, was away? While readers of classic mysteries will be delighted with the elegant solution, the book will also appeal to fans of procedurals that carefully develop the relationships among the investigative team members. Agent: Anna Stein, Aitken Alexander Associates. (Oct.)