A Midsummer's Equation: A Detective Galileo Novel

The residents of the failing Japanese resort town of Hari Cove are sharply divided by plans for an underwater mining operation; some worry that the environmental consequences could be the death blow. Physicist Manabu Yukawa (nicknamed "Detective Galileo" and introduced in Higashino's award-winning The Devotion of Suspect X) has arrived to speak on this controversial issue at a conference. After a long day of meetings and heated discussions, one of the resort's guests is found dead at the base of a cliff. What seems like an accident evolves into something sinister and unsettling. The victim is identified as a retired police detective who didn't slip and fall but died of carbon monoxide poisoning. As the police investigation digs into the lives of the locals, Yukawa discovers connections to an old case the dead detective was involved in before he retired.