Invisible Helix by keigo higashino - book review

Stumbled on this book while searching for "Galileo" web series. Whenever i read these english translated versions, I wish i could read the original Japanese version. Not that the translation is bad in this case. In fact, it feels too correct -  as if, Google translate has been run on every single line with UK accent as the base for translation. Some of the colloquial usages sound odd even if the book was originally written by an English native author. That apart, as compared to some of the other translated works like "the name of the game is kidnapping" where right from the title, it feels amateurish and filled with grammatical errors, Invisible Helix is definitely one of the better translated books of Keigo. Like his every other detective novel, this one is steeply into human relations and the strong family bonding. In fact, across all of the 4 books that i've read, the core plot involve homicide, where the cause of death would be as a result of retaliation for the physical abuse by the domestic partner. The investigative procedure is mind numbing in detail and through the course of the story, the character sketches almost always comes out uniformly same. Most of the time, the crime is resolved as much by the witnesses telling the truth as much as intuitive detective work which solely depends on statements by whom they enquire. The story moves around conversations and points shared by the witnesses which takes the police from one person to another finally resulting in the perpetrator confessing on their own to save their dear ones. This has been the standard format across almost all of the books i've read by the author and that is another reason why i want to read the original work to confirm if this was what intended in the native version!  

The main difference i felt in this book was, even though most of the other books follow the same pattern of a dead body being investigated by the police, resulting in the case getting resolved via flashbacks narrated towards the end, this one is almost linear in nature where, it felt as if, the details are purposedly made non-linear by rearranging the chapters. The story begins like a movie from early 80's or 90's where a poverty stricken estranged couple, with the girl pregnant out of wedlock, ends up losing her lover to illness and leaves her baby in an orphanage. Cut to present, there is a girl who lives with her mother, who soon dies due to illness again, leaving the girl at the mercy of her new found love, who turns out to be physically abusive. Suddenly the guy is found dead and the police start snooping around to find that the girl is the grand child of the one who was mentioned at the beginning of the story. The twist being that she actually lies, pretending to be the grand child to usurp the old lady's wealth and despite suspecting it, the old lady goes about killing the abusive guy to save the girl. In the end, you would feel as if you've read a love story of a grandmother for her family as much as a detective novel. Of the books that i've read of keigo, this would be the most lightweight of them all.