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In My Hands Today…

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Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials – Ovidia Yu

20530957Rosie “Aunty” Lee, the feisty widow, amateur sleuth, and proprietor of Singapore’s best-loved home cooking restaurant is back in another delectable, witty mystery involving scandal and murder among the city’s elite.

Few know more about what goes on in Singapore than Aunty Lee. When a scandal over illegal organ donation involving prominent citizens makes news, she already has a list of suspects. There’s no time to snoop, though—Aunty Lee’s Delights is catering a brunch for local socialites Henry and Mabel Sung at their opulent house.

Rumour has it that the Sung fortune is in trouble, and Aunty Lee woRumour if the gossip is true. But soon after arriving at the Sung’s house, her curiosity turns to suspicion. Why is a storage house she discovers locked? What is the couple arguing about behind closed doors? Where is the guest of honour who never showed up?

Then, Mabel Sung and her son Leonard are found dead. The authorities blame it on Aunty Lee’s special stewed chicken with buah keluak, a local black nut that can be poisonous if cooked improperly. Aunty Lee has never carelessly prepared a dish. She’s certain the deaths are murder—and that they’re somehow linked to the organ donor scandal.

To save her business and her reputation, she’s got to prove it—and unmask a dangerous killer whose next victim may just be Aunty Lee.

In My Hands Today…

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The Girls in the High Heeled Shoes – Michael Kurland

25489302It is 1935 and America remains in the depths of the Great Depression – Benny Goodman is the “King of Swing,” Senator Huey Long was just assassinated, and Joe Louis has just beaten Primo Carnera in the boxing ring.

To millions of Americans, Alexander Brass, newspaper columnist and radio personality, is the voice of Manhattan nightlife, and they rely on him for the latest gossip about the stars and the beautiful people, the gangsters, and the lowlifes, who make up the scene. While researching his column at the latest hot spot, Alexander Brass learns that Two-Headed Mary, a renowned and beloved grifter who works the Broadway theaters, is missing and that her friends on the Street are worried.

Brass runs a short item in his column about her disappearance and shortly thereafter he finds himself in the midst of a full-scale mystery. Not only does Mary’s disappearance seem tied to the disappearance of an ex-chorus girl cum Broadway box-office ticket taker, but Brass learns that someone else out there is far too interested in Mary’s whereabouts.

In My Hands Today…

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Spirit House –  Christopher G. Moore

136227A farang is dead and the Bangkok police have a confession the next morning from a young paint-thinner addict. He claims he killed Ben Hoadly, an expat Brit, but Calvino has his doubts when he sees heavy bruises on the kid’s face. In no time Calvino is working both sides, out to find the killer for Hoadly’s wealthy father, and eager to clear the addict’s name for a beautiful friend who runs a charity in the slums. With the help of his best friend, Pratt, a Shakespeare quoting Thai police colonel, and his loyal assistant, Ratana, Calvino plunges into the dangerous world of addicts, dealers, fortune tellers, inexpensive hit men, oversexed foreigners, and professional bar girls.

In My Hands Today…

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Aunty Lee’s Delights – Ovidia Yu

17349206This delectable and witty mystery introduces Rosie “Aunty” Lee, feisty widow, amateur sleuth and proprietor of Singapore’s best-loved home cooking restaurant

After losing her husband, Rosie Lee could easily have become one of Singapore’s “tai tai,” an idle rich lady devoted to mah-jongg and luxury shopping. Instead, she threw herself into building a culinary empire from her restaurant, Aunty Lee’s Delights, where spicy Singaporean home cooking is graciously served to locals and tourists alike. But when a body is found in one of Singapore’s beautiful tourist havens, and when one of her wealthy guests fails to show at a dinner party, Aunty Lee knows that the two are likely connected.

The murder and disappearance throws together Aunty Lee’s henpecked stepson Mark, his social-climbing wife Selina, a gay couple whose love is still illegal in Singapore, and an elderly Australian tourist couple whose visit-billed at first as a pleasure cruise-may mask a deeper purpose. Investigating the murder is rookie Police Commissioner Raja, who quickly discovers that the savvy and well-connected Aunty Lee can track down clues even better than local law enforcement.

Wise, witty and unusually charming, Aunty Lee’s Delights is a spicy mystery about love, friendship and home cooking in Singapore, where money flows freely and people of many religions and ethnicities co-exist peacefully, but where tensions lurk just below the surface, sometimes with deadly results.

In My Hands Today…

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A Frightfully English Execution (Inspector Singh Investigates #7) – Shamini Flint

28015744Inspector Singh is irate. He’s been instructed to attend a Commonwealth conference on policing in London: a job for paper pushers, not real cops, as far as he is concerned.

And as if that isn’t bad enough, his wife is determined to come along to shop for souvenirs and visit previously unknown relatives.

But it isn’t long before the cold case that lands on Singh’s ample lap turns into a hot potato and he has to outwit Scotland Yard, his wife and London’s finest criminals to prevent more frightful executions from occurring on his watch – or indeed, from being added to their number.