Celebrating Mysteries: Asia

 

Thank you for being patient with me. I had no idea it would take me so long to write the next post in this series! Hopefully, it was worth waiting for.

I love learning about the landscape, the culture, and the food of other places-- even simple everyday things. Does water come out every time the faucet is turned on? If you flip a switch, do the lights come on? How's the traffic? If you walk into a building, are you on the ground floor or the first floor? This world and the people in it are so diverse that the more I learn, the more connected I feel to others. 

 

 

This week, I'm concentrating on the countries in Asia. There are big gaps in my list, and I'm hoping that you can fill in some of them with your own recommendations.

 

There's no way I can express how much I appreciate authors who can bring another place, another culture to life for me. The only way I can try is to list some of my favorites, so let's get started. By the way, clicking on any links in the book titles will take you to my review of that particular book. (Some books were read pre-blog; therefore, the links will take you to Amazon US.)

India

 

I absolutely adore (and I don't throw that word around lightly) Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri series of five books. Oh, how I wish there were more! Wonderful characters and mysteries, gentle humor...and the setting!  This woman who grew up in the middle of the corn and soybean fields of central Illinois felt so immersed in the New Delhi setting that I now consider Indian cuisine among my favorites. (It was unheard of in central Illinois way back then.) Hall weaves in so many small details about life there as well as family dynamics. If you want to know more about India, make the acquaintance of private investigator Vish Puri.

The Case of the Missing Servant is the first book in the series.

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing is book two.

The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken is book three.

There are currently five books in the series.

Vaseem Khan is another favorite author who is adept at showing readers the depth and diversity of Indian culture, and he does so with two series. His Baby Ganesh series featuring a retired police detective and the baby elephant he inherited gives us a wonderful picture of modern Mumbai, while his new Persis Wadia series immerses readers in 1950s India. I highly recommend both series.

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra is the first book in the Baby Ganesh series.

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown is the second book in the same series.

There are currently five books in this series.

 

Midnight at Malabar House is the first book in the Persis Wadia series.

This series currently has two books.

For whatever reason, India has become a "flavor of the month" in crime fiction, and I couldn't be happier. There is so much to learn about this amazing country, and solving mysteries set there is one of the best ways to do it. 

Sujata Massey is writing a wonderful series featuring female lawyer Perveen Mistry that's set in 1920s Bombay (Mumbai). Her main character is based on the first female lawyer in India, and the series shows us how carefully Perveen has to negotiate all the various factions in India from British Colonial to religious as she solves crimes. It's not easy!

The Widows of Malabar Hill is the first book in the series.

The Satapur Moonstone is book two.

The Bombay Prince is book three.

 

There are currently three books in this series.

 

 

Japan

 

 

Sujata Massey has also written another very enjoyable series in which I learned a lot about Japan. Rei Shimura is a Japanese-American working to become an antiques dealer. The series is set in Tokyo, and Massey weaves all sorts of facets of Japanese culture into the mysteries.

I read these listed books before I ever had this blog, so the links in the titles will send you to Amazon US so you can learn more about them.

The Salaryman's Wife is the first book in the series.

Zen Attitude is book two.

The Flower Master is book three.

There are currently eleven books in this series.

Saudi Arabia

Zoë Ferraris wrote a trilogy of mysteries set in Saudi Arabia that simply blew me away for the strength of their setting alone (and they're strong mysteries, too). I came to these books late because Finding Nouf had received so much hype that I was apprehensive, but I soon learned that the hype was well-deserved. Wow! Readers get to see life in Saudi Arabia from the eyes of both outsiders and natives as Katya Hijazi, a forensic scientist, and Nayir Sharqi, a Palestinian desert guide, solve crimes.

Finding Nouf is the first book in the trilogy.

City of Veils is book two.

Kingdom of Strangers is the final book in the trilogy.

Singapore

Ovidia Yu writes an historical mystery series set in 1930s Singapore that really captured my imagination. Su Lin is a young local girl who has more than a touch of Sherlock Holmes and has a chance to use her talents while working at the house of the Acting Governor of the Crown Colony of Singapore. I love the botanical titles-- yet another way to get my armchair traveling motor running!

The Frangipani Tree Mystery is the first book in the series.

The Betel Nut Mystery is the second.

The Paper Bark Tree Mystery is the third.

There are currently four books in this series.

Sri Lanka

Harriet Steel, like Ovidia Yu, writes an excellent historical series-- Steel's set in 1930s Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The series features Inspector Shanti de Silva and his English wife.

Trouble in Nuala is the first book in the series.

Dark Clouds Over Nuala is the second book.

Offstage in Nuala is book three.

There are currently nine books in the series.

Thailand

Tim Hallinan is one of those talented writers who imparts a strong sense of place to his readers no matter where he's writing about. I fell in love with his Poke Rafferty series set in Thailand when the first book, A Nail Through the Heart, blew me away. We do see Thailand through outsider Poke's eyes, but we also get to see it through the eyes of his Thai family.

A Nail Through the Heart is the first book in the series.

The Fourth Watcher is the second.

Breathing Water is the third.

 

There are nine books in the series. 

Tibet

Eliot Pattison brings readers right into a prison camp high in the Himalaya Mountains in his series featuring imprisoned Chinese bureaucrat Shan Tao Yun. He may be nothing but a worthless bureaucrat, but the Communist government always seems to need him to solve their crimes. Funny that...

The Skull Mantra is the first book in the series.

Water Touching Stone is book two.

Bone Mountain is book three.

There are currently ten books in the series.

Turkey

Barbara Nadel's Inspector Çetin Ikmen series sets readers down in Istanbul and makes them feel welcome. Her settings are so vivid that I can even believe I'm inhaling the smells. Now... how many writers get that specific?

Belshazzar's Daughter is the first book in the series.

The Ottoman Cage is book two.

Arabesk is book three.

There are seventeen books in the series.

Well, those are the authors I wanted to bring to your attention the most. I hope that they've turned out to be a combination of well-loved and brand-new. I know that I've left plenty of gaps, and I need to add to my Need-To-Read list. Which authors would you recommend whose books are not only good but have an exceptionally strong sense of Asian place? Inquiring minds would love to know!

Dark Clouds Over Nuala by Harriet Steel

First Lines: New Year's Eve 1933. Western Australia. As the minutes to midnight ticked away, ever greater numbers of revellers crowded into the noisy bar.

The most prestigious entry on the 1935 racing calendar is the Empire Cup, and with the added bonus of the presence of the heir to a British earldom, everyone in the hill town of Nuala wants to go to the race course to take a look and add to the gossip mill. Others, like Inspector Shanti de Silva and his wife Jane, have been invited to dinner at the Residence to meet the heir, Ralph Wynne-Talbot and his wife Jane. The couple is stopping in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) before boarding a ship bound for England, and entertainments have been planned for them. But their hunting trip goes horribly wrong when someone dies.

Inspector de Silva is summoned to the scene, and it doesn't take him long to decide that this death is not an accident; it's murder. Now all he has to do is prove it, and that won't be easy with a rich Romanian count, the count's glamorous wife, and a mysterious British army officer (and all sorts of British government officials) to deal with.

After having read the first book in the series, Trouble in Nuala, I looked forward to reading the second entry. I was not disappointed. I enjoy the relationship between the biracial couple of de Silva and his wife Jane. They met and married later in life, and not only are they deeply in love, but de Silva also values Jane's opinions on all sorts of subjects. It doesn't hurt that Jane is an Agatha Christie fan so she can provide some help in solving her husband's mysteries.

Set in the 1930s, Steel's series shows some of the problems and culture clashes of colonial-era Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In Dark Clouds Over Nuala, these problems mainly consist of native-born de Silva circumventing the British Old Boys Network in order to solve a crime involving a prominent British family. The mystery is a convoluted one, but I recently watched an episode of Miss Marple that helped me find my way through all the clues. (No, I won't tell you the episode!)

The author does an excellent job of providing enough background in each book so readers won't feel lost if they pick up a volume in the middle. This also helps if a reader just wants to sample and not to commit to the entire series. Steel's books satisfy on several levels: characterization, mystery, and the food and culture of Sri Lanka in the 1930s. I'll be coming back for more, and-- if you sample one of Inspector de Silva's mysteries-- chances are that you will be, too.

Dark Clouds Over Nuala by Harriet Steel

ASIN: B071H6PW9M

Stane Street Press © 2017

eBook, 228 pages

Historical Mystery, #2 Inspector de Silva mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.


 

Trouble in Nuala by Harriet Steel

First Line: Inspector Shanti de Silva exhaled a deep sigh of relief as the train left the sweltering lowlands of Colombo and commenced the long climb to Kandy.

After moving from the city of Colombo to the hill town of Nuala, Inspector Shanti de Silva and his wife Jane appreciate the slower pace of life. All that changes when a mix of a cruel and arrogant plantation owner, his lonely wife, and a crusading lawyer turns deadly. The inspector is going to need all of his experience to solve this crime.

Inspector de Silva and his English wife Jane waited until they were in their forties to marry. Yes, they'd finally met the person they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with, but they were also old enough to know their own minds and not care about any raised eyebrows. Why the raised eyebrows? Because it is 1930s colonial Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and mixed marriages aren't quite the done thing. Shanti enjoys reading classics like Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe while Jane prefers Agatha Christie. Shanti loves the spicy foods of his native Ceylon and finds English food bland and heavy. Jane would never eat chilis for breakfast. These two main characters in Harriet Steel's Trouble in Nuala are fun to get to know-- and there's more.

This book has a marvelous sense of time and place. Readers learn about a country under British colonial rule and the problems with which it must deal. Not only that, but the descriptions of the landscape and wildlife of Ceylon are vivid and help to bring the whole book to life. Two examples:  farmers set off firecrackers to scare away wild elephants and prevent them from destroying crops, and then there are stunning scenes like "the startling lime-green splash of a paddy field where egrets stood like white question marks."

Although the killer's identity isn't all that difficult to deduce, my appetite for the other books in this series will not be denied. The only real problem I have with Trouble in Nuala is that it's too short!

Trouble in Nuala by Harriet Steel

ASIN: B01K7VSGO8

Stane Street Press © 2016

eBook, 200 pages

Historical Mystery, #1 Inspector de Silva mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.