Abstract

Sales in Japan exceeded 800,000 copies!
A new entertainment work following “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store”. New full-length novel.

It is said that if you pray to the camphor tree, your wish will come true.
This is the story of a young man who is entrusted with the responsibility of watching over the camphor tree and the people who visit the tree to pray to it.
Reito is fired from his job for an unjust reason and is arrested for committing a crime to vent his anger.
He appeals to the interrogator to gain his sympathy, but in vain, he is sent to the police station and awaits prosecution. Then suddenly a lawyer appears and offers to let him go if he obeys his client's order.
Reito has no idea who his client is, but he is sure that he will end up in jail if he does not comply with his client's order. So he takes a gamble and obeys.
When he went to the place where the client was waiting, he found an elderly woman. She calls herself Chifune, and to his surprise, she is also his aunt.
She gives an order to Reito, who says he has not lived a very praiseworthy life and has no prospects for the future: What I want you to do is to be the guardian of the camphor tree…

Author’s Information

Keigo Higashino is one of the most popular and best-selling novelists in Japan.
In 1985, he won his first award, the 31st Edogawa Rampo Prize,
for Hokago (After School). This was followed by the 52nd Mystery Writers of Japan Prize for Naoko in 1999, the 134th Naoki Prize and the 6th Honkaku Mystery Award for The Devotion of Suspect X in 2006, the 7th Chuokoron Prize for Literature for The Miracles of the Namiya General Store in 2012, the 26th Shibata Renzaburo Prize for Mugenbana (Dream Flower) in 2013, and the 48th Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature for Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki (When the Curtain of Prayer Descends) in 2014.
These awards assure that in addition to sales, Keigo Higashino delivers quality.
His many other works include Hakugin Jack (Silver Hijack), A Midsummer’s Equation, Utsurona Jujika (Hollow Cross), and Masquerade Eve.