26 Apr / The Silent Parade [Detective Galileo 4] by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray [in Booklist]
As the third narrator of Keigo Higashino’s internationally bestselling Detective Galileo series (four volumes available Stateside thus far), David Shih is also the first (finally!) to be facile with Japanese names and places. Although the Taiwanese American actor speaks only English, his conscientiously researched, accurate pronunciation substantially enhances his already deft performance. Like most Higashino titles, the cast is vast – with almost two-dozen characters. Shih knows this as he also smoothly voiced Higashino’s non-Galileo, Under the Midnight Sun.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Chief Inspector Kusanagi and Detective Sergeant Utsumi reappear here, this time chasing homicide in suburban Kikuno, famous for its annual cosplay parade. A missing teen’s remains turn up in the charred ruins of a murder suspect’s former home. The suspect previously used silence to get exonerated for a different schoolgirl’s death, and now he’s become a brazen nuisance at the teen’s parents’ restaurant. Until he ends up dead. Enter Manabu Yukawa, aka Galileo, who brilliantly connects the bodies.
From sonorous to simpering to seething, Shih reveals multilayers of aha!s with convincing gravitas and grace.
Review: “Media,” Booklist, April 15, 2022
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018 (Japan), 2021 (United States)