In my other writing life, I write historicals with romance, but one day I was asked by a very wise writer what it was that I actually read, and I had to admit that I almost exclusively read Mysteries. Not just historical mysteries, but all sorts of mysteries—from the viscerally terrifying, such as Patricia Cornwell, to the charming fun of Rhys Bowen. In fact I used to do all my reading in the car on a lengthy commute to and from work immersed in audio books. The problem with listening to mysteries in the car, I would end up parked outside the office just at an exciting point in the story and have been known to wait until the end of the chapter to start the work day…
Maybe it is a reflection on my age and stage of life (husband on the point of retirement) that my thoughts have turned from romance to murder!
I suppose the obvious question is why I chose to make life difficult for myself and set my Harriet Gordon series in, what must seem to many, the remote landscape of Singapore in 1910, instead of the nice, well-worn, and blood soaked streets and lanes of England.
Firstly I’m not English—I’m an Australian (and we have some perfectly respectable blood soaked streets and lanes here). Secondly, I have had the privilege of living in both Kenya and Singapore (which for me is not quite so remote—being only a seven hour flight from Melbourne), and those wonderful evocative countries are part of my DNA. Thirdly, I love the challenge of bringing to life a time and place that no longer exists or only lurks in the shadows.
If you have visited Singapore in recent years, you will find a vibrant, modern city which changes on every visit, but the bones of the original town that my protagonist, Harriet Gordon, knew are still there if you know where to look. And while there has been much fiction set in Singapore during the horrific years of World War II, there is very little written about the early twentieth century, and I hope Harriet’s stories go some of the way to introducing readers to that time.
But I’m here to talk about crime fiction, and more specifically to introduce you to stories from the western Pacific rim, with settings that are not your usual fare…
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Let’s start with Australia. Did you know that one of the very first murder mysteries was set in Melbourne, Australia? Yes… my own home town! The Mystery of the Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume was published in Melbourne in 1886. It went on to be published in the UK and the USA, predating and outselling Conan Doyle’s first novel A Study in Scarlet. I guess you could call it a contemporary murder mystery (for its time) and it has stood up well!
Writers you may or may not be familiar with are now crowding the local crime writers festivals: Peter Temple, Michael Robotham, Candice Fox, Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies), Robert Gott, Jock Serong…the list of established and up and coming Australian crime writers seems bottomless—but here are my all-time local mystery favorites.
The Phryne Fisher Murder Mysteries, by Kerry Greenwood
Again set in murderous Melbourne, has become a popular TV series on PBS and other international networks these days. Set in the 1920s, dear Phryne—elegant and invincible—has taken a long time to find her feet. I first met the author, Kerry Greenwood in the local magistrate’s court twenty five years ago and fangirled then… but that’s a story for another day! (Although I do hasten to say we were both there as lawyers representing clients—not for any other, nefarious, reason)
The Aaron Falk crime series, Jane Harper
For the more serious, let me introduce Jane Harper’s new Aaron Falk crime series beginning with The Dry. What I love about Jane’s writing is her ability to evoke the Australian bush to the extent that it becomes a character in its own right. The Dry is currently being made into a TV series starring Eric Bana so watch out for it! But much as I love her Aaron Falk stories, I have to say, that her latest book The Lost Man, a stand alone set in outback Queensland is my favorite—again for her ability to make the Australian outback into a malevolent character that is as much a part of the book as the humans.
The Rowland Sinclair series, by Sulari Gentill
For lovers of historical mysteries with a difference, I must recommend Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair murder mysteries. Set in Sydney in the 1930s, Sulari has introduced me to a whole period of Australian history I knew nothing about as the rise of fascism threatens to overcome not just Europe but casts its tentacles into our own politics. While the setting is historical, it is a series for our times.
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And what of crime fiction set in South East Asia? Oh yes, crime is rife everywhere, and while there are some great stories coming out of India in particular (I am particularly enjoying Vaseem Khan’s Inspector Chopra series and also Sujata Massey’s Praveen Mistry series), Singapore itself is not far behind…
The Inspector Singh mystery series, by Shamini Flint
At the top of my list is Shamini Flint, a Malaysian-born writer who writes the Inspector Singh mystery series. The slightly portly, Sikh inspector has had a number of adventures that have taken him around the world where he plies his particularly Singaporean thinking to the solving of crimes. He’s one of my favorites. The first in the series is The Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder.
The Feng Shui detective novels, by Nury Vittachi
For a good fun read, try the Feng Shui detective novels of Nury Vittachi (a Hong Kong based writer). The eponymous detective, C.S. Wong solves crimes through the inventive application of the principles of Feng Shui. Now you cannot live in Asia and not become something of a convert to the ideals of Feng Shui—I know I did. Ask me about the evil tiger painting I bought my husband for a birthday present…
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There are also plenty of authors on my “to be read” list:
Ovidia Yu has written a number of cozy mysteries set in Singapore, and I have the first of her Aunty Lee stories Aunty Lee’s Delights on my ebook reader and ready to go. Two “expat” writers penning crime fiction set in Thailand are also on my to-read list—Christopher G. Moore (Vincent Calvino series) and John Burdett (Detective Sonchai Litpleecheep).
In the world of Japanese crime fiction, local female writers Natsuo Kirino, Miyake Miyabe, and Shizuko Natsube are getting wonderful reviews. But for an older, tried and true series, have a look at Seicho Matsumoto’s Inspector Imanishi series. And then there is the Laura Joh Rowland Sano Ichiro Mystery series.
For fans of literary espionage, let’s not forget a classic: Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, set in Vietnam in the days before the war, is wonderful and always relevant.
There are, of course, plenty of mysteries coming out China, the Philippines or Indonesia, but that is an article for another day. So there you go…a little taste of some fabulous crime reads—some historical, some modern, some light and some dark—all with an intriguing setting that becomes a character in the book, and dictates the course of the investigation. The reason we love to read crime fiction is the same no matter the setting—we read for the comfort of knowing, in fiction at least, that good will prevail.
Happy reading!
