A review by hoppyread
Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ll start by saying, if you’re looking for a mystery where the joy comes from trying to solve it yourself, this isn’t the one for you. I don’t think the point of it is to figure out what happened as much as it is an exploration of how far the criminals are willing to go and why. 

I read this one so quickly despite the length, and was genuinely interested in knowing what happened next. The writing and translation read very smoothly.

Story-wise, I was surprised that we were given basically the crimes and circumstances from the characters involved rather than following the detective as he tried to solve them. I don’t read many mystery books, so I wouldn’t know if this is typical. I was expecting a lot more of the detective, but I didn’t mind following the many side characters instead. It felt very easy to meet each new character because Higashino introduces them in such a natural way with enough information to keep them feeling unique and realistic. Sometimes with many character perspectives it gets confusing, but here it wasn’t. I also appreciated how we never got the perpetrator’s perspectives, only those of the outsiders.

I should have read content warnings, though, because I was very disturbed by the sexual violence, personally.

Overall, I found the story very compelling. I could recommend this to people as long as they check the content warnings. I’m definitely interested in checking out some of Higashino’s other books.
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