Apoorva's Reviews > The Devotion of Suspect X

** spoiler alert ** The Devotion of Suspect X begins with Yasuko, a divorced mother who lives with her daughter Misato. Her abusive ex husband who's been exhorting money from her decides to show up at her place. Things go out of hand and Yasuko ends up killing him with the help of Misato. Her next door neighbor Ishigami, a high school math teacher, aware of the incident takes control of the situation and helps her get rid of the body and cover up the murder and provides instructions to them about what part to play.

This book is simply amazing. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time wondering how it'll all turn out. It was such a delight to see two geniuses battling it out. We have Ishigami, a teacher obsessed with Maths who likes solving difficult problems and Yukawa, a physicist and his former colleague who's master of observation and assists police frequently in their investigations and is known as detective Galileo. We are presented with a mathematical conundrum: P = NP -whether it’s more difficult to think of the solution to a problem yourself or to ascertain if someone else’s answer to the same problem is correct. Ishimagi weaves an elaborate story of murder around him and presents the answer while it rests on Yukawa to figure it out.

The brilliance of the book lies in it's simplicity. Ishigami likes designing problems in a way that takes advantage of the blind spot created by the person's assumption which tricks him. From the start we are presented with some information and we try to figure it out considering one possibility but in the end we find out that we fell into the trap. That's what Ishigami does and that's what the book does to you. I got the L and Kira vibes from it simply because of the way both were trying to outmaneuver each other. I felt really bad for Ishigami at the end cuz his plan fell apart in spite of him doing everything in his power to make it successful. I sympathized with him when I learnt the reason for his devotion. But all actions have consequences and this is no different. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book immensely.

'When an amateur attempts to conceal something, the more complex he makes his camouflage, the deeper the grave he digs for himself. But not so a genius. The genius does something far simpler, yet something no normal person would even dream of, the last thing a normal person would think of doing. And from this simplicity, immense complexity is created.’ Pretty much sums it up.

If you're a fan of thriller, you should definitely read this book.