5 must-read books by Keigo Higashino, the master of Japanese mystery

4 min readJul 27, 2026 10:37 PM IST Keigo Higashino, the bestselling Japanese crime novelist. Readers across the world are mourning the death of Keigo Higashino, the bestselling Japanese crime novelist, at the age of 68. Over a four-decade career, he flipped the whodunit formula, indulging in a variety of well-done experiments from scientific ethics to psychological and supernatural territory. For readers unfamiliar with his works, here are five novels that are a testament to his genius.The Devotion of Suspect X (2005) When a translation of the book released in the West in 2011, it put Japanese crime thrillers on the map, with critics hailing him as the next Stieg Larsson. In India, Jaane Jaan, the Hindi mystery thriller film directed by Sujoy Ghosh, starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Jaideep A