Old Soul

This is a jigsaw puzzle of a book. Jake is travelling in Japan where he has a chance, yet intimate,(non-sexual - Jake is gay) encounter with a woman whose estranged brother has died recently and the autopsy says the cause of death is ‘Situs Inversus’ affecting the heart. Situs Inversus is a syndrome caused when internal organs are reversed from the normal left-right orientation; it is a birth defect and having it discovered during the autopsy of an adult raised in a country with modern healthcare is incredible. It happens that Jake lost his best friend several years ago and the cause of her death was also Situs Inversus. Jake suspects some sort of foul play and has the money, time and resources to investigate starting with the story of the man’s last days as told by the wife. Based on the wife’s story the primary “person of interest” (Situs Inversus is not “foul play”) is a woman photographer from Germany, who used a fake identity and has already left Japan. The remainder of the story is told through flashbacks and diary entries as Jake tracks down other victims across the globe and getting closer to the woman (monster?), to understanding how and why her victims perish. There is a pretty well fleshed out supernatural explanation for the deaths and the motivation of our suspect. I enjoyed this book. Could it have been better (maybe) written by Stephen King? Yes this would be 90% similar one of his plots, but no the milieu is a little fringey (her victims tend to be artists or at least aspire to art) and the ending is kinda dark for SK.