Yup, guilty as charged
I am indeed becoming a bit of an Inspector Singh junkie, having just polished off the third in the series in the space of a week.
And books 4-6 are downloaded and ready to go.
In the third book in the series, Inspector Singh is on home turf, trying to find out who murdered a lawyer in a big international law firm. Questioning highly trained lawyers was never going to be a cake walk and the good Inspector finds himself tackling a wall of corporate solidarity. But, as he soon discovers, his irritating orders to investigate in the lawyers’ offices rather than at police HQ, to try and keep the press off the trail, does have some unexpected benefits:
Unlike the first two books in the series, where the overweight, chain-smoking, beer-loving detective was working overseas, first in Malaysia and then in Indonesia, in “The Singapore School of Villainy ” we get to see Inspector Singh in his home environment. And that means we finally get to meet Mrs. Singh, a woman who is very concerned about her reputation within the Singaporean Sikh community. Since one of the lawyers who may be a possible suspect is not only a young unmarried Sikh boy, but also one to whom she is very, very distantly related, it is especially galling that her husband is seemingly unable to nail the culprit, when all the world and its wife and the local press and her sisters knows who has done it. (The wife. Or the second wife. Open and shut case.)
Here Mrs. Singh defends the young Sikh man she doesn’t know – but he is a Sikh, and is very very distant family, from India :
As in the previous two novels, Inspector Singh has a sidekick appointed to work with him – and cleverly, this is never the same person – and it is always someone who is initially very uncomfortable around his unorthodox way of working. And this being Singapore, the young local policeman seconded to this murder investigation is beyond nervous at his boss’s unconventional approach and what it might do to his own shiny-new career prospects.
For this is, after all, Singapore, a place where there are relatively few murders, and hardly ever a high profile one.
Singh, too, initially despairs of Corporal Fong, who keeps jumping to attention and is terrified of putting a foot wrong.
Ms Flint is, as ever, spot-on-perfect with he characterisation of the Chinese, the ex-pats, the Indians and the Filipinas who people this whodunnit.
One suspects that she doesn’t have much time for the entitled culture of European ex-pats.
Or perhaps it is just the portly Inspector Singh who doesn’t:
Ms Flint’s description of the hefty Singh sisters is oh-so-accurate:
I live in India, in New Delhi, so the baggy-trousered matrons ring true, as do the flappy arms:
This third novel in the series brings us closer to understanding Inspector Singh the man, as opposed to Inspector Singh the cheerfully rule-bending policeman who irritates the living daylights out of his superiors. We see him, for example, in the presence of his wife, and sprawled in his comfy chair at home, and in this book, on his home turf, he seems to be more personally concerned about some of his suspects. The end of the novel is bleaker and darker and more moving than anything we have seen of Inspector Singh thus far. He becomes a more rounded character in this book (no pun intended), moving beyond his fat wheezy persona to a man with deep emotions, and he is all the more endearing for it.
But nevertheless, Singh the slightly ridiculous caricatural character (and fully aware of his own image) is as funny as ever:
He is nobody’s fool, and is realistic enough to know that he is a square peg in a round hole – an unorthodox Indian cop in an orderly Chinese set up:
Anyway, that’s enough from me. I’m worried that if I share any more thoughts with you I may inadvertently spoil the plot, which is – as ever – a cracker, keeping you guessing until the last chapter. Actually, if I can boast a wee bit, I sort-of-guessed who the murder might be, but, like the good Inspector, didn’t want it to be true.
Great read.
Recommended.
Go on, order the book right now. You won’t regret it. And if you want to order Book 1 and Book 2, just click on the relevant links.