For Keigo Higashino, moral ambiguity was the plot twist

NewsOpinionEditorialsFor Keigo Higashino, moral ambiguity was the plot twist Higashino’s appeal lay not just in the elegance of his solutions, remarkable though they often were, but in the fact that he trusted his readers — to grapple with ambiguity, to ask difficult questions. At a time when thrillers replace emotional depth with relentless pace, it was his exploration of what lies behind whodunits that made the 68-year-old Japanese writer, who died on Monday, a global phenomenon. 2 min readJul 29, 2026 06:15 AM IST First published on: Jul 29, 2026 at 06:15 AM IST Which is harder: Devising an unsolvable problem, or solving that problem?” posits Keigo Higashino in The Devotion of Suspect X. The stupendous success of the murder mystery, and of the books that came afterwards — Salvation of a