After I picked up Malice and realised that there’s still a lot of Higashino Keigo books that I haven’t read, I decided to try and find a few more books. I managed to pick up this copy of Salvation of a Saint in the library, which is great because it’s a Detective Galileo novel and I love the series!

Salvation of a Saint is about the most unlikely murder: Yoshitaka has been found poisoned in his own home. His wife, Ayane, had a motive for killing him, since he was going to divorce her for his pregnant mistress (who was her apprentice). But at the time of the murder, she was all the way in Sapporo. How could she have done it? Did she even do it? Detective Kusanagi is inclined to believe that Ayane is innocent but Utsumi and Yukawa have other ideas.

While Salvation of a Saint isn’t as clever as Malice in terms of narrative style, it’s still a very solid mystery. If you’ve watched the series Galileo, you’ll know what to expect: an impossible-seeming mystery that requires Professor Yukawa to solve it with science and logic.

I really liked all the characters here. A lot of the book is concerned with motivation – why would Ayane kill her husband but be on such good terms with his mistress? What is with Yoshitaka’s string of ladies? What is going on with Kusanagi? I’m not sure if I enjoyed the mystery or the characters more.

As a fan of the series Galileo, I especially loved how much air time Utsumi and Galileo have in this book. They have a great working relationship, as portrayed in the show, and I liked how they teamed up against Kusanagi to continue investigating. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably really enjoy this book because it’s pretty close to how the show adapted the novels.