Piatkus

For those reading the Inspector Singh Investigates series in order, THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL OF VILLAINY is the third book.  Given these are a series, is it necessary to read them in order?  Whilst there's always something gained when reading books in the order that the author wrote them, this is a case where I'm not sure you need to be too obsessive about it.  Of course, from the start you'll get to know the good Inspector a little more, but to be honest, there's not a lot of expansion of character going on here.  It's obvious that Singh's constantly in trouble with his superiors, that he's a lone operator (think less lone wolf and more determined fox), that his wife doesn't understand him, that his methods are slightly unorthodox and that he's a "bit of a character".

What may help a little is to realise that Singh moves around quite a bit (the first book is set in Malaysia, the second in Bali) but in this book he's at home in Singapore.  Which nobody, not his bosses, not his wife, not even Singh are particularly best pleased about.  What may also help is to realise that despite Singh sounding suspiciously like an Asian Poirot wannabe, and the covers of the book seeming to signal something slightly on the cosier side of crime fiction, well... (sorry can't avoid the pun) you should never judge a book by its cover (or an Inspector by his description).  You can, however rely on the suggestion that there's a sly sense of humour behind these books... something that is even more apparent if you're ever lucky enough to come across the author herself, who took to writing after a career in the law, but really could have been just as successful as a stand up comedian.

The Inspector Singh series tackles difficult themes, in different places, but with a tone and style that veers away from too much confrontation.  Definitely not cosy, but equally not overly dark, Flint takes the reader into some tricky territory on occasions, using her Inspector Singh character as a foil for the worst excesses of humanity.  A detective from the "ask a few awkward questions, appear at the worst time in the suspect's life" school of detecting, Singh's physique isn't going to allow him to do a lot of rushing around, and his personality doesn't fit that bill either.  In THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL OF VILLAINY he's even more grumpy and more difficult, seemingly going out of his way to agitate everyone around him, whilst blithely believing that they are, in turn, out to annoy him every step of the way.  

Part of the trick in enjoying these books is really all about setting your expectations correctly.  If you are a huge fan of the very cosy; of mannered, polite and very English detecting, then Inspector Singh is probably not going to be totally to your taste.  I also don't always come away from the books with an overwhelmingly strong sense of the individual places.  But I do find myself warming to Inspector Singh.  If you're a fan of slightly more edgy than just entertaining books, centred around a central character who's a little bit grumpy, a little bit rumpled, a little bit hot and bothered, more than a bit tricky, and more than occasionally a big bit slyly funny, then this could be the series for you. 

The second Inspector Singh novel from Shamini Flint takes Singh to Bali to join the anti-terrorism efforts post a major bombing that ripped through the tourist areas.  What exactly Singh is doing as part of a anti-terrorism squad is no clearer to him than it is to anybody else, but the body in the wreckage, shot dead before the bomb gives Singh the sort of case that he's used to solving - a straight-forward murder.

Think Hercule Poirot in a Sikh turban and the tropical heat of Kuala Lumpur, but add a hefty dose of rumpled Columbo and I think that's the best description of Inspector Singh of the Singapore police that I can come up with.  A MOST PECULIAR MALAYSIAN MURDER is the first in this series from Singapore based author Shamini Flint.

This book is definitely on the lighter side of crime fiction, I'll have to read the next couple that I have here to be able to say if that's an ongoing characteristic, but I'm guessing it's probably exactly where the books are heading.  Whilst there is a shooting murder in this book, it happens off-page, there's very little in the way of rushing around on the part of the main protagonist and whilst there is always the threat of the death penalty hanging over the chief suspect, there's a sense that Inspector Singh will, of course, save the day.  Which he does with a hefty dose of gentle humour, quite questioning, observation and just enough prodding of various sore points.  Or at least he sort of does.  But more on plot later.   It seems a more than reasonable expectation that the personality of the main character is going to inform each of his future investigations, and whilst Singh takes his job seriously, he's very much set up to be a "character".

Of course a debut book in a series has to be read with that in mind, and A MOST PECULIAR MALAYSIAN MURDER is an unusual book in that Inspector Singh isn't so much "investigating the crime" as checking that another authority have got it right.  He's not in his usual territory and must rely on some local support (and use some indifference from the local authorities as a spur to proceed).  There's a few subplots working their way through the book - with the chief suspect fighting the Syariah courts for custody of her children, a battle for control of the family company, and a tribe of native people's being butchered, all of which are pulled together at the end of the book with some hefty reeling in of the various lines.  It's not too hard to work out that these threads are all going to coincide, and therefore have some idea of where the resolution is coming from, but there are precious few clues for the reader to work with.  Really there's less of a solving and more of a revealing going on, and because of that I doubt it's going to be a very satisfactory ending for fans of guessing the culprit before the author reveals all.

As the start of a new series of rumpled, "character" type detectives, I thought A MOST PECULIAR MALAYSIAN MURDER was a good, light, fun read, introducing a new protagonist who really seems to have some potential.  In future books I really hope that he hits his stride, embraces his inner grumpy old man and gets to grips with his surroundings.  I'm also hoping that the next books have a little more leeway to introduce the world that Inspector Singh inhabits, as this first book did seem to have it's hands full introducing him.

Australian author Keri Arthur is a dab hand at striking that balance between
action and seduction and has won herself a whole swag of romance and fantasy
readers for it. Her creation Riley Jensen is just enough of the girl we
all know and also just enough of the girl we'd like to be or know, set in an
alternate urban landscape that literally seethes danger and the promise of
deadly deeds. Riley and her fantastical compadres stalk the night and
struggle to keep the monsters, which are really not so different from
themselves, away from unsuspecting Melbourne urbanites.

DEADLY DESIRE is the 7th book in a series that has pretty gone at much the same
tickety boo pace since conception with few hiccups along the way. It is
difficult to maintain sexual tension in a series where they are pretty much all
at it like rabbits (or if you prefer, wolves most of the time; doubly so when
you are this many books into the series. So Arthur instead keeps a simmer
on romantic tension, in that Riley must decide whether the heart or the
hormones are going to be the deciding factors on how she is going to conduct
the rest of her life. She may be with someone right now, but is she going
to remain with them forever when her genetic inheritance may dictate that she
can't? Riley has the hardest task of all on her hands with how to keep it
all together as she is a vampire, werewolf, general shape shifter
extraordinaire and developing psychic all rolled into one.

At some point the author is going to have to call a halt into turning Riley
into some kind of superwoman as superwomen aren't that interesting; we'd rather
see the heroine actually have a bit of a struggle on her hands when she's in
combat. Likewise with introducing new fantastical beasts and demons into
the series. It is hard enough to keep straight all the creature rules and regs
straight, particularly if you read a lot of urban fantasy books.

DEADLY DESIRE features a lot of brutal fight scenes which Arthur excels at
describing and tones down the sexual content as well in this book, which is a
relief really. In this fantasy world, the werewolves call it
"dancing". Keri Arthur's alternate world is a fun place to
escape to, even if we do sometime seriously doubt that Riley only keeps the
stilettos for spiking into bad guys when there's no other weapon handy.

A.T.

The latest "it" in crime fiction can be pretty common.  Sometimes it's a plot elements, sometimes it's locations for books, sometimes it's the home location of the author themselves.  The "it" thing I'm coming across a lot at the moment is books set in Africa.  Not that you could possibly complain if the books are the standard of BAIT.

BAIT is set in Kenya, and whilst the setting is used to good effect - the scenery, the animals, the weather, what is really used well is the society (emerging / building / dealing with the after-affects of civil unrest) and the people themselves.  There is also an almost matter-of-fact approach to violence.  It's actually quite interesting the way that the story will suddenly burst into extreme violence - with an almost dismissive regard for human life and quickly step away.  The reader may quickly find themselves in a bar, on a boat or deep in the musings of a good and decent policeman's mind.  It is this contrast that is one of the things that I really enjoyed about BAIT.  It enhanced the feeling of a society very much on the edge - where the rules are slightly different than they are in more settled or peaceful locations. 

BAIT is set around two main characters - Jouma the Kenyan policeman, a man with very firm personal boundaries, somewhat buttoned up and stiff on occasions, a good man in a world where it is very easy not to be.  Jake is an Englishman - an ex-London copper, he's your classic fringe dweller.  He came to Kenya to move away from his past - but he's not a stereotypical tortured soul, he's aware of his past but he's not "running" - he's gone somewhere where he feels comfortable to start again and in the process he's found himself on the fringe of English expectations and well within the norm in a wilder world. 

The investigation at the centre of this book starts off as a series of small events - the explosion of a charter fishing boat and the death of its skipper, the discovery of the remains of a young black man, the arrival of the dead skipper's daughter.  As a number of smaller investigations start to converge Jouma is trying to work out the significance of the young man's death and Jake is trying to work out who wants to kill him.  They team up more by accident of circumstance than any particular plan to get to the bottom of a very messy story of human greed and violence.

The book is in someways a police procedural, although the nature of those "procedures" are controlled very much by the levels of corruption in the official classes, combined with a general feeling of a chaotic society.  What we might class as lax procedures, seems highly evolved and very sophisticated in light of what's going on around the police.  There is also the unofficial sidekick element - Jake isn't operating as a policeman and he's definitely not using any form of procedures when he gets involved in the action.  It's also very dark in places - but not consistently throughout the book.  There are moments of extreme violence, there are moments of funny.  There's even some romancing going on (only a little for those who hate that sort of thing in their crime fiction).  There's a lot of pace, and there's a quite a bit of tension and there are just a few plot elements that you won't see coming, alongside a few that you will.  It's also a debut book, which shows real potential - Jake and Jouma are just made for a series and Kenya is a perfect setting for them both.

STRANGERS IN DEATH is the 26th book in the hugely successful "in Death" series.  You have to be impressed by that.  They are all the things still that they were in the first few books of the series - smart, funny, absorbing and simply delightful offerings of escapism.  Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb, has no peer in her ability to regularly churn out the best sellers across her chosen genres of women's fiction, drama, the supernatural and with this series, the future police procedural.  So effortlessly is the future world of Eve and her man Roarke detailed from book to book that it is easily imagined to be one day truth, albeit not perhaps as soon as only 50 or so projected years in the future.  As it was with "Hal", readers of the Eve Dallas books will be one day frowning that the Auto chef has not yet been invented, or that their food street vendors have not evolved into highly mobile "air carts".

Roberts keeps her stories domestic and true to the city of New York and despite the possible scope allowable in doing so, keeps her the crimes ageless in motive and opportunity.   They remain urban dilemmas, with the added spin of advanced technology being both a hindrance and a help with the police investigation.   STRANGERS IN DEATH take a new look at an old theme, the discussion of which would be here a major plot spoiler - but it's good to know that new light can still be shone through old windows. 

A.T.