The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

My previous read - the japanese crime fiction "Out" - was pulp fiction (not the movie) at its tastiest. Totally improbable odds, intense suspense, combined with blood thirsty violence and revenge. I loved it. But Keigo Higashino's world of crime is quite different. The Devotion of Suspect X is a classic whodunnit with a twist. Thoroughly logical with a superbly crafted focus on clues - real and fake - with old school justice at its core. It was like a fencing match: two awesome minds face each other at opposite ends of a murder. One has created a puzzle, the other will attempt to unscramble it. Higashino had me guessing until the last page, and managed to keep up the suspense on a high note throughout. Delicious read!

The story: Ishigami is one of the cleverest mathematician of his generation. He has given up on academia to dedicate himself to his life long project: solving one of the most famous problems in mathematics without a computer. Ishigami happens to be Yasuko's next door neighbour. Yasuko is kind, beautiful, and has a charged past. Her ex-husband, a bully and a thief who has horrible designs on her daughter, has been stalking her for years. She thought she finally escaped him but she was wrong.... Ishigami will be here to help her when tragedy strikes, but he could not have foreseen that Yukawa, his former university pal and Ishigami's equal in mathematics, would turn out to be Detective Kusanagi's assistant. And the duel begins!