Back with yet another fine Keigo Higashino novel turned cinematic film, this time Manatsu no Hoteishiki, English translated as “A Midsummer’s Equation”, the third book in the ongoing INSPECTOR GALILEO series featuring the quirky physics Scientist Manabu Yukawa.
I really liked this novel- though every Galileo book is different in its own way, Midsummer’s Equation is really unlike the others: not only does the scientist do most of the actual detective work himself, his companion is a young boy, a real oddity considering how much Yukawa loathes children!
On a train to the remote seaside town of Hari Cove, physicist Manabu Yukawa meets a young boy named Kyohei having trouble with his cell phone. Helping him out, he finds the boy is going to stay for a few weeks at an inn run by his Aunt and Uncle. This inn is where much will happen in the next few days!
Yukawa has come to the Cove to speak at a town meeting about exploring the ocean’s seabed to mine for precious resources. One side is against development of any kind and want to keep the beaches as they are, while the other side fears that unless they find new sources of revenue, the town will be dying out anyway.
One of the key protestors at the meeting is Narumi Kawabata (Anne Watanabe), a beautiful and outspoken young girl who is vehemently opposed to the proposed project. She argues with Yukawa, who advises her to research more before blindly naysaying, but she and her team are steadfast in their belief!
Narumi is the daughter of Shigeharu Kawabata (Gin Maeda) and Setsuko (Jun Fubuki), the Husband and wife running the Inn, and she is thrilled to find her young cousin there when she arrives home. She is less thrilled to find Dr. Yukawa there as well, but they are more concerned with another gentleman who has also checked in, a man named Tsukahara (Sansei Shiomi) who seems to know something about the Kawabatas past….
When Tsukahara turns up dead on the shores of the cove, it at first seems nothing more than an accidental fall. But when he is revealed to have been poisoned by carbon monoxide before his supposed spill, the death is changed to murder. It seems this Tsukahara was a respected retired Police detective, and the Tokyo higher ups want Detectives Shunpei Kusanagi (Kazuki Kitamura) and Kishitani (Yuriko Yoshitaka) to investigate and close the case.
Yukawa has of course helped the Authorities before on cases, but here he is uniquely qualified as an actual person on the scene when the murder took place, and with Kishitani to aid him, they slowly work the case, clue by clue, til they have pieced together a most convoluted web of lies and secrets.
Amid all this Yukawa finds time to bond with the curious young boy Kyohei, and while teaching him fun experiments with science, he will unexpectedly uncover the key to the entire case.
Not sure why Shibasaki sat out this one (or the second season of Galileo in general), but she was not to return to the character until 2022’s Silent Parade.
They also did a good job of trimming out the secondary characters of the story: the junior policeman whom has a crush on Narumi, the two two local lawmen who have to grudgingly work with Tokyo Police, Narumi’s friends in the Development resistance, etc, they were all diversions cut out to make the story more streamlined, and it worked well.
