50books_poc | #03 Nury Vittachi: The Feng Shui Detective

Available here.

I enjoyed this odd little book. This is a mystery set in Singapore, but it also takes place elsewhere. The main detective is C. F. Wong, a feng shui man, and he is assisted by intern Joyce McQuinnie, a third culture kid. The book is written by Nury Vittachi, who is a Hong Kong writer writing in English. There's quite a lot of word-play in the story: English as adapted by various cultures, classes, locales, and age groups. The story is pretty simple: a couple of mysteries occur and Wong is more or less drawn into solving them.

The author uses mixed point of view. Sometimes tight third person, sometimes omni, sometimes storyteller voice, sometimes switching from character to character. I found it a bit odd at times, but it does add to the flavor of the novel, as most of the point (IMHO) is how different people view things differently.

This is a playful story and nothing is terribly serious. There is a certain amount of tom-foolery and silliness, some insight into feng shui, a modicum of sleuthing. Every so often, C. F. Wong writes an entry in the journal he keeps, where he records the stories of the great sages and provides some insight in Oriental wisdom.

This is a fluffy, fun mystery about mixed cultures, different languages, clashing personalities and ages. Recommended.