Homicide Detective Godai of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is assigned to investigate the death of a lawyer, Kensuke Shiraishi, whose body was found on a Central Tokyo riverbank. His investigations lead him to one Tatsuro Kuraki, who claims to have had limited contact with Shiraishi. But, surprising the investigators, Kuraki confesses not only to the lawyer's murder, but to another one from 30 years ago --- for which another man was arrested and died in custody before trial. This brings unexpected resolution to two cases, but there is one problem: to Detective Godai, the confession rings false. As Godai investigates further, he discovers that the relation between the murder of 30 years ago and the recent one is complex, raising multifaceted questions of guilt and innocence.

The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident; Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi. But when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. When they learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight; she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation. But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association.

In Osaka in 1973, the body of a murdered man is found in an abandoned building. Investigating the crime, Detective Sasagaki is unable to find the killer. Over the next 20 years, through the lens of a succession of characters, Keigo Higashino tells the story of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, whose lives are most affected by the crime, and the obsessed detective who continues to investigate the murder, looking for the elusive truth.

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. She lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo --- and neither her family nor her friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo. The other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.

In the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo, an unusual statue of a Japanese mythic beast --- a kirin --- stands guard over the district from the classic Nihonbashi Bridge. In the evening, a man who appears to be very drunk staggers onto the bridge and collapses right under the statue of the winged beast. The patrolman who sees this scene unfold goes to rouse the man, only to discover that the man is dead and was stabbed in the chest. The key to solving the crime is to find out where he was attacked and why he made such a superhuman effort to carry himself to the Nihonbashi Bridge. That same night, a young man named Yashima is injured in a car accident while attempting to flee from the police. Found on him is the wallet of the murdered man.

A popular young girl disappears without a trace, and her skeletal remains are discovered three years later. When the prime suspect isn’t indicted, he returns to mock the girl’s family. And this isn’t the first time he’s been suspected of the murder of a young girl; nearly 20 years ago, he was tried and released due to lack of evidence. Detective Chief Inspector Kusanagi worked both cases. The neighborhood in which the murdered girl lived is famous for an annual street festival. During the parade, the suspected killer dies unexpectedly. DCI Kusanagi turns once again to his college friend, Physics professor and occasional police consultant Manabu Yukawa --- known as Detective Galileo --- to help solve the string of impossible-to-prove murders.

A woman is found murdered in her new apartment in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Living a quiet life, with nothing remarkable in her past and no known enemies, this newcomer’s murder is as baffling as it is unlikely. Detective Kyochiro Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department is also a newcomer to the area. Assigned to the task force investigating the murder, Kaga interviews the various local people somehow connected to the victim. But the more he pulls on the loose threads of a simple life, the greater the number of potential suspects emerge. To prevent the murderer from eluding justice, Kaga must unravel all the secrets of the local residents, finding out the truth behind their interactions with the victim. Buried somewhere in the woman’s seemingly uncomplicated life is the one clue that will lead to the murderer.

Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as "Detective Galileo," has traveled to Hari Cove, a once-popular summer resort town that has fallen on hard times. He is there to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, which has sharply divided the town. The night after the tense panel discussion, one of the resort's guests is found dead on the seashore at the base of the local cliffs. As the police try to uncover where Tsukahara was killed and why, Yukawa finds himself enmeshed in yet another confounding case of murder. In a series of twists, Galileo uncovers the hidden relationship behind the tragic events that led to this crime.

Bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he’s planning to relocate to Vancouver. His body is discovered by his wife and his best friend, both of whom seem to have rock solid alibis. But the question before Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga isn't necessarily who or how, but why. In MALICE, the detective and the killer battle over the truth of the past and how events that led to the murder really unfolded.

Yoshitaka, who was about to leave his marriage and his wife, is poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee and dies. His wife, Ayane, is the logical suspect --- except that she was hundreds of miles away when he was murdered. The lead detective refuses to believe that she could have had anything to do with the crime. His assistant, however, is convinced Ayane is guilty and calls upon Professor Manabu Yukawa to solve this impossible murder.

Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter Misato, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor.