![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've previously reviewed the three books published so far in the Inspector Singh Investigates series by Shamini Flint, but those were reviews that tried to give an idea of what the books were like without significant spoilers. Is anyone interested in spoilerific discussion, since at least one of you has gone out and read the books as a result of my reviews?
A quick summary: Inspector Singh is an overweight, chain-smoking, unfit detective in the Singapore police force. He's very good at catching killers, but he doesn't really fit into the current force culture, and his superiors are only too happy to get this disgrace to the force temporarily out of sight and out of mind by loaning him to the police forces of neighbouring countries.
One of the reasons he's so good at his job is that he works by understanding how and why people behave the way they do -- a Singapore Sikh version of a certain Belgian detective, or a little old lady from St Mary Mead. Singh's his own man, not just a flimsy pastiche of those characters, but he holds the same appeal for a reader.
The books are set in South East Asia, but some aspects of policing are the same the world over. And the setting is written from the inside -- Flint is a lawyer who has worked in both Malaysia and Singapore, and knows whereof she writes.
I picked up the first book from a table in The Works, because the premise of a crime-busting Sikh detective travelling South-East Asia sounded intriguing. The blurb on the book looked worth investing a couple of hours of time, so I bought it, and found a book that certainly had its flaws, but showed a lot of promise. When the author found my review and offered me review copies of the next two books, I was glad to accept. Those books made good on the potential I'd seen in the first, and I'm now eagerly waiting for the fourth book to come out. Some reasons why coming up in the comment thread...
A quick summary: Inspector Singh is an overweight, chain-smoking, unfit detective in the Singapore police force. He's very good at catching killers, but he doesn't really fit into the current force culture, and his superiors are only too happy to get this disgrace to the force temporarily out of sight and out of mind by loaning him to the police forces of neighbouring countries.
One of the reasons he's so good at his job is that he works by understanding how and why people behave the way they do -- a Singapore Sikh version of a certain Belgian detective, or a little old lady from St Mary Mead. Singh's his own man, not just a flimsy pastiche of those characters, but he holds the same appeal for a reader.
The books are set in South East Asia, but some aspects of policing are the same the world over. And the setting is written from the inside -- Flint is a lawyer who has worked in both Malaysia and Singapore, and knows whereof she writes.
I picked up the first book from a table in The Works, because the premise of a crime-busting Sikh detective travelling South-East Asia sounded intriguing. The blurb on the book looked worth investing a couple of hours of time, so I bought it, and found a book that certainly had its flaws, but showed a lot of promise. When the author found my review and offered me review copies of the next two books, I was glad to accept. Those books made good on the potential I'd seen in the first, and I'm now eagerly waiting for the fourth book to come out. Some reasons why coming up in the comment thread...
