Forbidden Magic

Forbidden Magic is the eighth installment in Keigo Higashino's Detective Galileo series and, following Masquerade Hotel, another collection of short stories. It contains four baffling cases involving seemingly supernatural powers and magic, solved jointly by the physicist Manabu Yukawa and Tokyo Metropolitan Police detective Shunpei Kusanagi. "Clairvoyance": At an upscale Ginza bar, hostess Aiko performs a "clairvoyance" demonstration for Kusanagi and Yukawa, and astonishingly names Yukawa's identity and research, intriguing even the normally skeptical Yukawa. Four months later, Aiko's body is found in the grass along the Arakawa River. Does she really have supernatural powers? Why did she die? "Curveball": Rieko Yanagisawa, a VIP member of a sports club, is found dead in the passenger seat of a car in a large parking lot, her head struck with a sharp object. Her husband is a professional baseball pitcher in a slump and facing retirement. Is it a romantic entanglement, or is there more to it? "Thought Waves": Late at night, Fujiko Mikuriya is visited by her neighbor Haruna, who asks for help. Haruna and her twin sister Wakana have long claimed to share telepathy; after Wakana is attacked at home and falls into a coma, Haruna firmly believes she can sense the images her sister saw before the attack. "Fierce Shot": Yukawa is invited to a "Reviving Science-Based Nation" party hosted by a member of parliament, where he encounters Kusanagi, who is investigating the death of freelance writer Osamu Nagaoka. A series of explosions leads Yukawa to Shingo Furushiba, a junior he deeply admires. This story was later extensively rewritten by the author into the novel The Forbidden Magic. The four stories continue the series' approach of explaining "extraordinary phenomena" through science and ultimately grounding them in human nature.