Tag Archives: Fiction

In My Hands Today…

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The Case of the Man who Died Laughing (Vish Puri #2) – Tarquin Hall

Murder is no laughing matter. Yet a prominent Indian scientist dies in a fit of giggles when a Hindu goddess appears from a mist and plunges a sword into his chest.

The only one laughing now is the main suspect, a powerful guru named Maharaj Swami, who seems to have done away with his most vocal critic.

Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator, master of disguise and lover of all things fried and spicy, doesn’t believe the murder is a supernatural occurrence, and proving who really killed Dr. Suresh Jha will require all the detective’s earthly faculties. To get at the truth, he and his team of undercover operatives—Facecream, Tubelight, and Flush—travel from the slum where India’s hereditary magicians must be persuaded to reveal their secrets to the holy city of Haridwar on the Ganges.

How did the murder weapon miraculously crumble into ash? Will Maharaj Swami have the last laugh? And perhaps more important, why is Puri’s wife, Rumpi, chasing petty criminals with his Mummy-ji when she should be at home making his rotis?

Stopping only to indulge his ample Punjabi appetite, Puri uncovers a web of spirituality, science, and sin unique in the annals of crime.

In My Hands Today…

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The Singapore School of Villany (Inspector Singh Investigates #3) – Shamini Flint

Inspector Singh is home – and how he wishes he wasn’t. His wife nags him at breakfast and his superiors are whiling away their time by giving him his usual ‘you’re a disgrace to the force’ lecture. Fortunately for Singh, there is no rest for the wicked when he is called out to the murder of a senior partner at an international law firm, clubbed to death at his desk. Unfortunately for Singh, there is no shortage of suspects – from the victim’s fellow partners to his wife and ex-wife – or motives, as many of the lawyers have secrets they would kill to protect. And very soon Singh finds himself heading up an investigation that rips apart the fabric of Singapore society and exposes the rotten core beneath. Perhaps coming home wasn’t such a good idea, after all…?

In My Hands Today

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Disco for the Departed (Dr. Siri Paiboun #3) – Colin Cotterill

Dr. Siri Paiboun, reluctant national coroner of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, is summoned to a remote location in the mountains of Huaphan Province, where for years the leaders of the current government had hidden out in caves, waiting to assume power. Now, as a major celebration of the new regime is scheduled to take place, an arm is found protruding from the concrete walk that had been laid from the President’s former cave hideout to his new house beneath the cliffs. Dr. Siri is ordered to supervise the disinterment of the body attached to the arm, identify the corpse and discover how he died.

The autopsy provides some surprises but it is his gift as a shaman that enables the seventy-two-year old doctor to discover why the victim was buried alive and, eventually, the identity of his killer.

Dr. Siri Paiboun Series:

  • Book 1: The Coroner’s Lunch
  • Book 2: Thirty-Three Teeth

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The Godfather of Kathmandu – John Burdett

Sonchai Jitpleecheep–John Burdett’s inimitable Royal Thai Police detective with the hard-bitten demeanor and the Buddhist soul–is summoned to the most shocking and intriguing crime scene of his career. Solving the murder could mean a promotion, but Sonchai, reeling from a personal tragedy, is more interested in Tietsin, an exiled Tibetan lama based in Kathmandu who has become his guru.

There are, however, obstacles in Sonchai’s path to nirvana. Police Colonel Vikorn has just named Sonchai his consigliere (he’s been studying “The Godfather” on DVD): to troubleshoot, babysit, defuse, procure, reconnoiter–do whatever needs to be done in Vikorn’s ongoing battle with Army General Zinna for control of Bangkok’s network of illegal enterprises. And though Tietsin is enlightened and (eerily) charismatic, he also has forty million dollars’ worth of heroin for sale. If Sonchai truly wants to be an initiate into Tietsin’s “apocalyptic Buddhism,” he has to pull off a deal that will bring Vikorn and Zinna to the same side of the table. Further complicating the challenge is Tara: a Tantric practitioner who captivates Sonchai with her remarkable otherworldly techniques.

Here is Sonchai put to the extreme test–as a cop, as a Buddhist, as an impossibly earthbound man–in John Burdett’s most wildly inventive, darkly comic, and wickedly entertaining novel yet.

Book 4 of the series featuring the half Asian, half Caucasian Bangkok inspector Sonchai Jitpleecheep

The books in the series:

  1. Book 1: Bangkok 8
  2. Book 2: Bangkok Tattoo
  3. Book 3: Bangkok Haunts
  4. Book 4: The Godfather of Kathmandu
  5. Book 5: Vulture Peak

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Love Marriage – V.V. Ganeshanathan

In this globe-scattered Sri Lankan family, we speak of only two kinds of marriage. The first is the Arranged Marriage. The second is the Love Marriage. In reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first toward the second.

The daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, Yalini finds herself caught between the traditions of her ancestors and the lure of her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, Yalini is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.

While Kumaran’s loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family’s roots–and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils–through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran’s death and his daughter’s politically motivated nuptials edge closer, Yalini must decide where she stands.