Singapore Mystery

The island city-state of Singapore harbors unique customs and traditions largely unknown to the West. A booming economy and embrace of conformity overshadow its gambling dens, red-light districts, and a collective passion for ghostly and gory tales. Now, in Singapore Noir, some of its best contemporary authors delve into its seedy side.

Singapore, 1910 - Desperate for a fresh start, Harriet Gordon finds herself living with her brother, a reverend and headmaster of a school for boys, in Singapore at the height of colonial rule. Hoping to gain some financial independence, she advertises her services as a personal secretary. It is unfortunate that she should discover her first client, Sir Oswald Newbold - explorer, mine magnate, and president of the exclusive Explorers and Geographers Club - dead with a knife in his throat.

Inspector Samuel Tay is the best homicide detective Singapore CID ever had, but Tay's bosses don't like him and he doesn't like them. The maverick streak he inherited from his American father makes people uneasy in well-ordered little Singapore where go-along-to-get-along is practically the national religion. The wife of the American ambassador has been murdered and her body posed in a hotel room in a grotesque sexual display. The FBI says terrorists are responsible, but the whispers on the street tell a different story. The whispers say that a serial killer is stalking prominent American ...

They steer a tight ship in squeaky-clean Singapore. No dissent, no opposition, no criticism. It’s like an entire country run by Walt Disney. Disneyland with the death penalty, somebody once called it. A young American software engineer hangs himself in his Singapore apartment. At least that’s what the police say happened. Emma Lazar, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, thinks otherwise. She thinks Tyler Bartlett was murdered to keep him quiet about something and the Singapore police are covering it up. Emma Lazar asks Inspector Samuel Tay to help her look into the young man’s death....

The first bomb cracked the Hilton like an egg. The second gutted the lobby of the Marriott. And the third peeled the front off the Grand Hyatt. All American hotels. All destroyed. Hundreds are dead and thousands are injured. Singapore is bleeding. Inspector Samuel Tay is a senior inspector in Singapore CID, but he is frozen out of the investigation from the beginning. He has some serious enemies in Singapore’s Internal Security Department and he has even more enemies at the American embassy, so Tay is assigned routine cases while his colleagues join with the CIA and the FBI in a feverish ...

If you’re going to fight, fight like you’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark. And brother, it’s starting to rain. Samuel Tay has retired from Singapore CID. He's no longer a police inspector. It wasn’t entirely his idea, but that’s another story. John August is a guy who has saved Tay’s butt more than once over the years. He’s an American who may or may not do something for the CIA. Now August is here to collect on all those favors Tay owes him. He needs Tay’s help to investigate a murder. ‘Whose murder?’ Tay asks. ‘Mine,’ August tells him. "WHEN IT COMES...

Singapore is a tiny country in a dangerous neighborhood. Barely five million people live in the secular city-state surrounded by the three hundred million Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia. Islamic terrorism in Asia may not get much attention in America or Europe, but it gets plenty in Singapore. They’ve been hit once already. Not long ago, coordinated truck bombs laid waste to three American hotels in Singapore. Thousands were killed and injured. And everyone knows it’s just a matter of time before Singapore gets hit again. Abu Suparman is the messianic leader of a radical group of ...

After losing her husband, Rosie Lee could have become one of Singapore's "tai tai," an idle rich lady. Instead she is building a culinary empire from her restaurant, Aunty Lee's Delights, where spicy Singaporean meals are graciously served to locals and tourists alike. But when a body is found in one of Singapore's tourist havens and one of her guests fails to show at a dinner party, Aunty Lee knows that the two events are likely connected.

Sisters Nadia and Cass Brenner are heirs to Ocean House, a decades-old empire that builds superyachts for the rich and powerful: emirs, oligarchs, and titans of industry throughout America and Europe. They’re a next-generation success with the design of their soon-to-be-commissioned megayacht for a Chinese billionaire. But the sisters’ entrée into the coveted Asian market is tragically cut short when Cass falls from a fortieth-floor hotel balcony.

When Madame Motamboru, widow of the assassinated president of Bakara, is framed for murder in Singapore, she requests that her old friend Virgil Tibbs take part in the investigation. Because of US interests in the area, Tibbs is cleared for passage. Upon arrival, Tibbs finds that the police there are convinced of Madame Motamboru's guilt. All the evidence says that only she could have shot the man who visited her hotel suite.

Abandoning a recession-plagued America for the easy money of Southeast Asia's lucrative but highly illegal investment scam industry, Don Rouse must navigate through a sordid world of drug addicts, deviants, prostitutes and professional con men in order to achieve his lifelong dream of making it big. But his world is suddenly turned upside down when the police show up and his boss goes missing. After a chance meeting with the alluring but enigmatic Jessica, Don is plunged into a high stakes mystery that could very well put an end to his criminal career and perhaps even his life. From the ...

Anna Yang needs a change. After losing her best friend in Vegas, Anna needs to find a place to heal. So, she takes a new job on Resort Island. Resort Island, a small island off of sunny Singapore, recently converted into a luxurious resort island, is supposed to have everything Anna needs. Fun. Happy faces. Uplifting environment. Safe. But just as she is about to cross the lobby, something drops right in front of her. Something large. Something … It can’t be a body … can it? Perhaps Vegas isn’t the problem. Perhaps Anna is …

The electrifying sequel to THE OPENER! Don Rouse is young, rich, happily married and lives the life of a jet-setting expatriate in Southeast Asia. He also happens to be a master con artist, a manipulative swindler who controls a fictitious firm that convinces unsuspecting clients to place all their money into bogus investment opportunities. Aided by corrupt government officials, crooked cops, and unscrupulous bankers, Don lives a whimsical life of leisure and luxury with his alluring wife Jessica. When a mundane business meeting suddenly turns deadly, Don must use all of his cunning and ...

In the shadows of a war-torn world, where the echoes of battles still reverberate, lies a mystery that spans centuries. Welcome to the captivating realm of Lost Buddha, a postwar Sue Lee Mystery series that will take you on an exhilarating journey through time and intrigue. In the aftermath of a devastating conflict, Sue Lee, a tenacious and resourceful investigator, finds herself entangled in a web of secrets and hidden treasures. As an antique dealer, she stumbles upon a collection of seventh-century tapestries meticulously preserved during the war by an enigmatic figure. Little does she ...

There is nothing Rosie "Aunty" Lee, amateur sleuth and proprietor of Singapore's best-loved restaurant, loves more than solving other people's problems. So when Beth Kwuan, an ambitious businesswoman, tells Aunty Lee her maid has disappeared, Aunty Lee is happy to let her own maid, Nina, help. Only as the weeks go by, little clues make Aunty Lee worry. And as she digs into what is really going on behind the closed doors of Beth's grand house, she starts to wonder - did Beth's maid just run away, or did she meet a darker fate?

In “Deceptions Of War,” the second book in the Sue Lee mystery series by D.M. Sorlie, readers are taken on a thrilling journey from the barb-wired beachfront of Hawaii to occupied Paris in 1942. Captain Sue Lee Ono, a skilled code breaker for army intelligence, finds herself delving deeper into the dangerous world of espionage. With her exceptional language skills, Sue Lee is sent to Nazi-occupied Paris on a mission to locate and assist a Jewish scientist in his liberation. Time is of the essence as Sue Lee must complete her mission before the Gestapo, aided by the Vichy French, round ...

Bill Jedburgh, a former inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police, is hired by Brigadier Wee of the Singapore Intelligence Department to supervise the close protection detail of an influential Indonesian politician. But within hours of landing in Jakarta his assignment starts going wrong: the attractive but temperamental Sabrinah Darwis keeps crossing his path and it doesn't help when his occasional employer and close friend, the wealthy businessman Harry Bolt, asks him for help. Then the dead bodies start piling up. Will the Reliable Man be able to live up to his reputation? THIS IS A ...

Two pirates do battle on an old junk ship in Singapore Harbor. They leap nimbly from deck to rigging, crossing swords like fencing masters. And then one surprises the other, slicing a rope and sending the unfortunate pirate tumbling into the bay. This is how stuntman Angelo Sacchetti dies. Edward Cauthorne was his opponent, a fellow stuntman whose career died along with Sacchetti. He’s selling used cars when two thugs approach him.

TEN WORDS HAD SEALED MY FATE. It wasn’t until the waves had begun crashing into the stern of the ship, not until the salt spray was covering the decks and the hull was grinding and tearing itself upon the coral reef, not until the killing had started and terror had taken hold that I heard those ten words once more, flung at me by the wind. I cursed George for uttering them, and cursed Cheh Wah Tek for agreeing with him, and cursed myself for believing that smuggling fifty tonnes of marijuana from Australia to Singapore could be done so easily. Another thriller from the prize-winning ...

It's September 1953, and a helicopter crashes in the jungle. The pilot and a military policeman are burned to death, and it’s unclear what they were doing, but this was no accident. The name BlackJack is found at the scene. Ash Carter knew that the Special Investigations Branch were tracking a killer, and the discovery of a faceless body draws Carter into the case that involves the murder of ex-soldiers.