Oh, there's just one more thing...

In the past, I frequently complained about the state of the modern mystery, but in recent months, I’ve discovered wonderful authors like William L. DeAndrea and Bill Pronzini. Still, mysteries in the classic, GAD-style mould often seem unfairly ignored— how else to explain the lack of interest in publishing translations of Paul Halter's work in English? (You can say what you like, but Le Tigre borgne (The One- Eyed Tiger) is an absolute masterpiece.)

And yet, the opposite seems to be true in Japan, where authors like Soji Shimada (author of the brilliant The Tokyo Zodiac Murders) sell well! I’m not Japanese, nor do I understand the language, so I really cannot comment in depth here. However, on the blog Detection by Moonlight, there recently was a guest blog written by Ho-Ling, who pointed out some Japanese detective novels (translated into English) worth checking out. After searching my library catalogue, I managed to find one of the books Ho-Ling mentions in his final list (which includes a disclaimer, “not a complete list”): Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X.