"Atmospheric, character-centric historical mystery" - review of THE BURNING GROUNDS

THE BURNING GROUNDS by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker, 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

In the Burning Ghats of Calcutta, where the dead are laid to rest, a man is found murdered, his throat cut from ear to ear. The body is that of a popular philanthropist and patron of the arts. A man, who was, by all accounts, beloved by all. So what could possibly be the motive for murder? 

Though out of favour with the Imperial Police Force, Detective Sam Wyndham is assigned to the case, and finds himself thrust into the glamorous world of cinema when his investigation leads him to a film the victim was funding.

Meanwhile Sam's former colleague, Surendranath Banerjee, recently returned from Europe after three years running from the fallout of his last case, is searching for a vanished photographer, one of the first women in the profession. When he discovers the missing woman is somehow linked to Sam's murder investigation, the two men are forced to work together once again—but will Wyndham and Banerjee be able to put their differences aside to solve the case?

After scooping a host of accolades for his contemporary standalone thriller Hunted - most notably both the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and 2025 British Book Awards (aka the 'Nibbies') Crime & Thriller of the Year, Scottish-Bengali author Abir Mukherjee makes a welcome return to his ancestral homeland and the historical mystery series where he first made his name, with The Burning Grounds, a terrific sixth novel in his Wyndham and Banerjee series set in 1920s India. 

Mukherjee does an exquisite job transporting readers through space and time, and soaking us in the atmosphere of times - the place, people, and politics, as the British Raj was still in control but in decline, and India was moving towards eventual independence. You can almost smell the smoke from the burning ghats and feel sweat trickling as we traverse Calcultta (now Kolkata) and beyond with Sam and 'Surrender-not', the duo that give this historical series plenty of heart among the mysteries. 

In The Burning Grounds, both are still recovering from the events and fallout from the previous book, The Shadows of Men, which saw Banerjee framed for murder, imprisoned, and accused of terrorism. It's an uneasy reunion, a few years later, as cases and dangerous circumstances bring the former friends back into each other's orbits. But can they trust each other, after all that has happened? 

At a time when the country seems on the brink of tearing itself to pieces, and they're each roiling through their own self-sabotaging or self-destructive tendencies, two puzzling cases offer some salve. 

Mukherjee crafts a very good mystery tale that is enriched by his great touch for character and setting. There's plenty of intriguing historic details and perspectives to please history buffs, but not too many where they overwhelm or stall the plot. The Burning Grounds is a propulsive tale that will have pages whirring, but it doesn't feel 'thin'; there's a nice mix of depth and detail, of humanity and whodunnit. 

Overall, this is a very good read that will likely please newer readers to the series, while also delivering plenty for long-time fans. Mukherjee has shown with Hunted that he also has a good touch for contemporary tales, but hopefully there's still plenty of mileage left in the investigations and adventures of Detective Sam Wyndham and fellow sleuth Surendranath 'Surrender-not' Banerjee. Recommended. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

The origin of kebabs and the art of Dostoyevsky: an interview with Elçin Poyrazlar

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the 239th instalment of author interview series, 9mm, which is being resurrected this month back into a semi-regular column, after largely going into hibernation and only sporadically emerging from its cave in 2021-2024, for a variety of personal reasons.

Thanks for reading and sharing the 9mm series, and Crime Watch in general (and my work elsewhere) over many years. I've had a lot of fun talking to some amazing crime writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you in this column, along with magazine and newspaper features, event panels, podcasts, and more. 

I'm currently at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, one of the best book festivals of any kind in the world, and it's been terrific catching up with an array of crimeloving pals old and new, and being surrounded by creative, bookloving people who love a little darkness on the page but are largely pretty awesome, collegial, and supportive in real life. It's a great tribe to be part of, and as someone who'd loved books and mystery fiction my entire life, since I was a week kid growing up in a smalltown near the Top of the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, I feel very fortunate to get to wear a few different hats and be involved in the crime writing community variety of ways. 

But back to 9mm. You can check out the full list of of past 9mm interviewees here. All 238 of them, and counting. What a line-up! With lots more fun to come. Kia ora rawa atu (thanks heaps), everyone. 

If you've got a favourite crime or thriller writer who hasn't yet been part of the 9mm series, please let me know, and now I'm back on deck more fully, I'll look to make that happen for you. We've got several interviews with cool crime and thriller writers from several different countries 'already in the can' that will be published very soon, so lots to look forward to in the coming weeks and months.

Elcin and I in the 'big green chairs' where
I've done some fab interviews over the years

Today I'm very pleased to welcome to 9mm someone who I first met at Harrogate three years ago, brilliant and brave Turkish political journalist and crime writer Elçin Poyrazlar. 

Like me, Elçin is a bit of a globetrotter; in her case she's lived in Istanbul, Brussels, Washington, London and Madrid. We immediately hit it off a few years back, perhaps due to some elixir of both being foreigners at Harrogate who loved journalism, politics, travel, and deeply cared about law and justice issues, among a few other things in addition to the shared passion for crime and mystery writing most attendees have. Some great conversations, and we've stayed in touch since.

So it's been really terrific to catch up with Elcin in person again this year at Capital Crime in London last month, and now Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate this weekend. 

Alongside her journalism career, Elcin is also a leading Turkish crime writer - though for those of us Anglophones, her books are not (yet - watch this space) available in English translation. Still, it has been fun following her adventures at various book events in Turkey since we met, and seeing how popular she is over there - if slightly frustrating that I can't read her novels given my largely monolingual status (a few scraps of Maori, Spanish, and Japanese aside). 

From the critic reviews and reader reception in Turkey, and some translations of feature articles and commentary I've read, Elcin's books sound really fascinating. She writes both standalone thrillers and series crime fiction, including four books starring Chief Inspector Suat Zamir, a very strong, determined female detective and third-generation police officer who's trying to deliver justice from within a shadowy police and political system. She won the Turkish Crime Novel of the Year prize for her fourht novel, Ecel Cicekleri (Death Flowers). The latest Suat Zamir tale, Gölgenin Eli (The Hand of the Shadow), came out earlier this year. It centres on the brutal murder of a social media celebrity alongside Suat Zamir being tasked with tracking down a missing journalist and having to confront family secrets.

I'm really looking forward to reading Elçin's stories in English in the not-too-distant future, hopefully, but for now, this superb Turkish journalist and crime writer becomes the latest author to join me for an interview on the famed 'big green chairs' of Harrogate, and to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM: AN INTERVIEW WITH ELCIN POYRAZLAR

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction character?

You know, I think it's Mr Ripley. I love Patricia Highsmith. When I was growing up, I wanted to be her as a writer, and the fact that he is such a morally conflicting character. Patricia Highsmith puts the reader in a position where you hate the guy, you know, he's a murderer. He's a sleek operator that manipulates, but at the same time you want him to escape, to succeed. So this moral contradiction that  she puts us in, it's so thrilling. It's such a good character, and Patricia Highsmith is a master of writing thrillers, right? So I think it's him, but I also like a lot of espionage characters. 

A Turkish translation of 
Dostoyevsky's classic tale

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

Oh, that's an easy one, Crime and Punishment. I think I was somewhere around 14, when I was really hungry for books. When I get real taste of good literature. And I think Crime and Punishment is the best crime fiction book. Not many people admit that [it's a crime novel], but it's a fascinating book. And Dostoyevsky, I was reading all the classics, then I remember stopping right in the middle of it, and wandering around in the room, because it moved me so much. The writing was in itself art, but where it took me was a super psychological level. Yeah, so I loved it.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) - unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

So my very first book that I wrote was never published, and it was a dark satire of the Turkish politics, a composition of many stories, but at the end, all characters came together and killed the author that was writing the book. It never got published, because I knew that if we published it, I would end up in prison. And my husband was a bit nervous about that. But at some point I would love to publish it, because it was very Kafka-esque, yeah. And at the same time, it was quite a dark thing, and it was my first attempt into entering the genre.

Before that, I was always writing many articles about Turkey or diplomacy or the world affairs. I hadn't written books, but I wanted to write a journalistic book, and it ended up being an espionage book.

Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

I love walking, and I try to duplicate what Charles Dickens was doing with his night walks. We live in the same neighbourhood in London. I also love music, it's a fantastic way for me to relax. I almost became a musician, but then changed my mind. I played classical guitar when I was 15, and then I was going to go into Conservatory, and I said, you know, life as an artist will be very hard, so why don't I do something and then go back to music?

But then I became a writer, so I don't know which part of the artist life I avoided. I also travel a lot. I talk to people. And coming together with readers is also very inspiring.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

My hometown is Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire. It became quite a rich city because of the car industry but I would definitely recommend people go to visit the historic mosques, and eat a doner kebab. It is the hometown of the original kebabs, if you go to Iskender (which we translate as Alexander in English), definitely try one of the restaurants for the real deal of the doner kebab origins. 

Iskender was the family that started it. Basically because you know how you make a roast, you put a lamb or other animal on a horizontal [spit over the coals], and the thing they did was what if we put the animal vertical and get it all flowing into each other instead of the fire, just changing the direction of it.

So they've been doing that for more than a century.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

Oh, wow, that's a tough one. I don't know. Can I think on that... Kirsten Stewart? Oh, yes, I think she's a very good actor. I also quite like Scarlett Johansson, but we don't look alike... you know, any character actor would be great, like a tough journalist who is on the brink of maybe being arrested every time she goes back to Turkey.

Of your writings, which is a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?

Well, the first one was always special. But then is the first book, the book that makes your writer? I'm not sure. So I think my third book Mantolu Kadın (Woman in a Coat), where I tried my hand at domestic noir, was the book I realized, 'Oh, my God, now, I really have to take this seriously'. 

And you know, the first two are good, they're above average, but this third time out, I really have to be a professional writer. So, it's domestic Noir. A dead woman, a young dead woman, is telling the story. I tried my hand in a completely different sub genre, which I loved. And I think that's how my name got to be known in Turkey as well.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

Well, when my first book was published, I got some royalties, something small, then I immediately gave a wine party to my friends. I spent it in all one night. We celebrated. It was great.

When I first saw my book in a shop, I didn't celebrate it, but I was very touched and then I realized that right that moment that books are different entities than you. Once you write them, they don't belong to you anymore. They belong to the readers.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

I can easily tell you that, because this happened with two books previous, a couple of years ago. I was in an event, and then there was this woman coming to meet me. She drove like six or seven hours to meet me because I was in my hometown, but she was in another part of Turkey, which is quite big. Now she said that she's an Inspector, and she said "Are you also police? Have you ever worked as a police?" 

I said, No. And now she says, But you wrote about me. You know your character, Suat Zamir, is me. Everything that's happened, like in her career, happened to me. So this really, really touched me, you know? Because that was so real. She drove all the way to meet me to see who this woman is writing about a character just like her.

Kia ora, Elçin, we appreciate you having a chat with Crime Watch. 

Since visiting Gallipoli in 2011, I've said Anzac Day is about three
countries, not just two, so here's a full trifecta in London; Australian 
authors Hayley Scrivenor, Kate Kemp, and Chris Hammer, Kiwi me
and Turkish journalist and crime writer Elcin Poyrazlar

Do you enjoyed politically charged crime novels? What about reading books set outside of the UK and USA? What's the latest translated crime novel you've read? 

Let us know in the comments - and if you're a Turkish reader, please share what you think of Elçin's novels and her heroine Chief Inspector Suat Zamir. 

"An intricate, clever mystery": review of THE LABYRINTH HOUSE MURDERS

THE LABYRINTH HOUSE MURDERS by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong (Pushkin Vertigo, May 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

The famed mystery writer Miyagaki Yotaro lives a life of seclusion in the remote Labyrinth House. When Yotaro invites four young crime authors to his home for a birthday party, they are honoured to accept. But no sooner have they arrived than they are confronted with a shocking death, then lured into a bizarre, deadly competition…

As the twisted contest gathers pace, murder follows murder. The ingenious sleuth Shimada Kiyoshi investigates, but can he solve the mystery of the house before all those trapped in its labyrinth are dead? And can you guess the solution before he does?

Like Nordic Noir around fifteen years ago, translated Japanese crime fiction is now having a bit of a moment, globally. The Land of the Rising Sun certainly has a rich history of puzzling mysteries, dating back over a century (the country’s main ‘best mystery novel’ prize also predates either of its major British and American equivalents, the Daggers and the Edgars, by a few years).

Thankfully, the recent translation boom has opened up Japanese tales new and old for English-speaking readers. A great example is The Labyrinth House Murders, a fascinating new-to-Anglophones locked room mystery originally published in Japan in 1988. 

The third of nine books in legendary mystery and horror writer Yukito Ayatsuji’s ‘Bizarre House’ mystery series, it involves ingenious sleuth Shimada Kiyoshi investigating a deadly game at the house of famed author Miyagaki Yotaro. 

Four young crime authors are invited along with select others to celebrate Yotaro’s 60th birthday party, only to be trapped in the labyrinth as part of a deadly competition for a grand inheritance.

Ayatsuji crafts and intricate, clever mystery that leans into its Theseus and the Minotaur maze mythology, as well as serving as a near love letter to the classic mystery genre. 

It’s easy to see why Ayatsuji has achieved legendary status in his homeland. 

The Labyrinth House Murders is a pleasantly puzzling read, and hopefully we’ll see more of his stories (eg this particular series is nine books long in Japan) translated in future.

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Jack Reacher, PG Wodehouse, and Mumbai slums: an interview with Ajay Chowdhury

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the 240th instalment of author interview series, 9mm. Thanks for reading and sharing the 9mm series, and Crime Watch in general (and my work elsewhere) over many years. I've had a lot of fun talking to lots of amazing crime and thriller writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you.

You can check out the full list of of past 9mm interviewees here. What a line-up! With lots more fun to come. Thanks everyone. If you've got a favourite crime or thriller writer who hasn't yet been part of the 9mm series, please let me know, and now I'm back on deck more fully, I'll look to make that happen for you. We've got several interviews with cool crime and thriller writers from several different countries 'already in the can' that will be published soon, so lots to look forward to in the coming weeks and months.

Today I'm very pleased to welcome to 9mm an exciting newer voice in crime writing, Ajay Chowdhury, a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night.

Chowdhury won the first Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize (effectively a search for new, underrepresented voices in British crime writing), for the beginnings of what became The Waiter. Disgraced former Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman is waiting tables at a Brick Lane restaurant owned by family friends. When a birthday party for his boss’s friend ends in murder, Kamil is arm-twisted into an unofficial investigation alongside Anjoli, his boss’s precocious daughter. 

The series, which is in development for television, continued with The Cook, which delved into homelessness, The Detective, entwined with government surveillance and AI, and most recently The Spy. But for now, Ajay Chowdhury becomes the latest author to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM INTERVIEW WITH AJAY CHOWDHURY

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

Probably Bernie Gunther, from the Philip Kerr series. I just think following his life from mid 1930s Germany to the 1950s how he changes, everything he's been through, it's absolutely fantastic. And that was kind of my inspiration for when I knew I was going to get to do a second or third Kamil Rahman book, is, you know, I'd love to be able to follow the guy's life. 

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

I read a huge amount when I was a kid, and certainly the Enid Blyton books are the ones that absolutely grabbed me, the Famous Five. But the one that really showed me good writing was PG Woodhouse. I mean his language, I'd read nothing like it. Anyone who can write a line like "he wasn't disgruntled, but neither was he gruntled", that is really good, right?

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

I was very lucky to have written a children's novel which got published in 2016, Ayesha and the Firefish. I'd been telling my kids that little story at bedtime, and I wrote it, then a friend of mine said, I know a publisher, an editor at Penguin. I just got lucky there as well. They sent it, and this was Penguin India, and they said, Yeah, we'll publish it. Then later it got adapted to become a musical in LA and San Francisco - though I didn't write the musical. 

Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

I'm a huge bridge player. So I play bridge three times a week online. Weekends I'm normally playing a competition online. So I absolutely love playing bridge and then the usual other stuff, you know, travel, eating, cooking. 

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

I would count Calcutta [now Kolkata] and Bombay [Mumbai] as my hometowns, as I lived in both places. But if I take Bombay, where I have some great memories, this is going to sound a weird thing to say, but visit Dharavi, the biggest slum in the world. My next book is about it, but I went for the first time in January with my wife, and it's an extraordinary place. It's a million people, in pretty much one square mile. And it's factories, it's people living there. It's a complete ecosystem. And it's an extraordinary place to visit, and they do tours of it, which make me feel a little bit bad, because it feels slightly like poverty tourism, but it's an extraordinary place. And the tour guide we took, all the money goes back into the community. 

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

I'm a five foot, two inch Indian guy from Mumbai, so I think it would have to be the guy who plays Jack Reacher in the Netflix show [Alan Ritchson]. It'd be pure wish fulfilment. Not Tom Cruise though, that'd be too easy for him to do. But it would be cool to be played by someone six foot six with arms like potato sacks. That's my dream.

Of your writings, which is your favourite or a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?

Well, it would have to be The Waiter, because it's completely changed the direction of my life. So,  winning the competition and then having them say that, listen, we want more of these books, completely changed my life. I mean, I would not be sitting here next to you at this crime writing festival, Chiltern Kills, if I hadn't won that competition. So yeah, it would have to be that. 

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

So, seeing in a bookshop for the first time. We didn't celebrate it as such, but my wife and I were in Daunt Books in Hampstead, and The Waiter was sitting not on the shelf, they actually had it displayed on a table. And so my wife photographed me in front of it, and then she sneakily took it to the window and put it in the window, photographed me in front of the window, then put it back. So that was very special. The one thing that's never happened so far, and hopefully will sometime, is I have seen someone reading any of my books in the wild, yeah, that would be cool, I'm still waiting for that.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

Well, I mean, a guy came up to me today in the book signing after our panel saying he just finished reading The Detective and how much he absolutely hated the female character [ed note: Kamil's ex-fiancé Maliha, not Anjoli] ... he told me how much he hated her, how he felt she was completely unnecessary, and didn't understand why I put her in the book. So that was a bit controversial, and a story that quickly comes to mind! 

Kia ora, Ajay, we appreciate you having a chat with Crime Watch. 

"Dark issues and delicious writing" - review of THE SPY

THE SPY by Ajay Chowdhury (Harvill Secker, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Kamil Rahman is working for the Metropolitan Police when he gets the call from MI5. They've received intelligence of a terrorist plot, and it's Kamil they need. Posing as a disaffected cop, and working once again in Anjoli's beloved restaurant, Kamil infiltrates the cell. From London he is sent to Kashmir, a place he visited with his parents when he was younger. But his allegiance becomes blurred when he finds himself face to face with an old nemesis... 

I’ve been an unabashed fan of tech founder and CEO turned crime writer Ajay Chowdhury’s moreish mystery series starring disgraced Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman since the first outing, The Waiter (2021), which as an unpublished novel won the Bloody Scotland-Harvill Secker Prize for new voices. In that first book, Kamil was eking out a new life as a waiter at Tandoori Knights, a friend’s Indian restaurant in London’s Brick Lane, before murder intervened, and he was arm-twisted into undertaking an unofficial investigation alongside Anjoli, his new boss’s precocious daughter.

My only trouble with Chowdhury’s books is that, in among the dark deeds leavened with plenty of humour and heart, every time I read one I’d become so damned hungry, due to the food references!

As the more-ish series has grown, Kamil has returned to official policing with London’s famed Met Police. Although he perhaps got more respect even as berated waiter in Tandoori Knights. In The Spy he’s recruited by MI5 to try to infiltrate a dangerous terrorist cell. Playing the role of a disenchanted copper, exiled back to the Indian restaurant. Meanwhile some things haven’t changed, including Kamil’s complicated, stuttering, friends or maybe more relationship Anjoli, who once again gets drawn into amateur sleuthing as she starts to investigate the kidnapping of a teenage boy. 

As Kamil’s discoveries lead abroad, into the brutality and suffering of the long-running Kashmir conflict, he and Anjoli both face grave danger. Stakes are high, personally and politically. 

Once again, Chowdhury deftly crafts an engrossing, highly readable tale that delves into some of the darkest issues facing society, while providing plenty of light through the humour and heart of the characters, and some of the events. It's a tricky balance, but Chowdhury deftly pulls it off, delivering another cracking tale in what's become a really wonderful series, and a great addition to the genre. 

The Spy is delicious crime and thriller fiction, on all fronts. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Guest Review: MAMI SUZUKI: PRIVATE EYE

MAMI SUZUKI: PRIVATE EYE by Simon Rowe (Penguin, 2023)

Reviewed by Alyson Baker

Beneath the sheen of its orderly streets and obedient populace, all is not well in the port city of Kobe. Business is as brisk as the Haru-ichiban spring breeze for Mami Suzuki, hotel clerk by day, private investigator by night.

Who’s stealing from Japan’s biggest pearl trader? Where’s the master sushi chef and why are his knives missing? How did the tea ceremony teacher’s brother really die? And what does an island of cats have to do with a pregnant Shinto shrine maiden?

From the Kobe wharfs to the rugged Japan Sea coast, the subtropics of Okinawa, and a remote island community in the Seto Inland Sea, each new adventure ends with a universal truth – that there are two sides to every story of misfortune.

Mami Suzuki is moonlighting as a private eye in Kobe, Japan. She is doing so unbeknownst to the management of the Orient Hotel where she works – she needs the money to support herself, her mother, and her daughter. Four stories, each linked by the word of mouth of a client, present Mami Suzuki as shrewd, empathetic, and sensible – although possibly with a bit of a drinking problem.

Suzuki’s four cases take us to wonderfully described destinations; you can smell hear and taste the locations. One story is set in Kobe, with the president of a major pearl business concerned about theft in the organisation. The second takes us to the small port town of Mihonoseki near Matsue, with Suzuki trying to locate a sushi master who has left his family. Suzuki then takes her mum and daughter to Ishigaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture, to determine the truth behind the death of a retired executive. Finally, we start a mystery at the Ikuta Shrine in Kobe and end up on the island of Manabeshima, populated by 83 people and 166 cats.

A common thread in each story is the charming and handsome fisherman, Teizo, whose backstory equips him with knowledge of the sea, and connections in various places, which help Suzuki with her cases. The stories are in a minor key – Suzuki gently piecing together the stories of desperation, heartbreak, superstition, longing, and human frailty. They are compelling stories, and Suzuki is quite funny, gets angry, has a strong sense of justice that doesn’t always agree with the law, and finds the “greatest unsolved mystery” to be how she is managing to hold down a day job while working as a private investigator.

Mami Suzuki: Private Eye, written by an outsider who has spent a lot of time in Japan, gives a tantalising look at another way of thinking about things, while always keeping the distance of an onlooker; the result is atmospheric and beguiling. I really look forward to reading more of Mami Suzuki’s adventures..

Alyson Baker is a crime-loving former librarian in Nelson. This review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here. 

Guest review: WAKING THE TIGER

WAKING THE TIGER by Mark Wightman (Hobeck Books, 2021)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Singapore, 1939. A young Japanese woman is found dead on the dockside, her throat slashed. Inspector Maximo Betancourt is working a new beat, one he didn’t ask for. Following the disappearance of his wife, his life and career have fallen apart.

A distinctive tiger tattoo is the only clue to her identity

Once a rising star of Singapore CID, Betancourt has been relegated to the Marine Division, with tedious dockyard disputes and goods inspections among his new duties.

Who is she? And why are the authorities turning a blind eye?

But when a beautiful, unidentified Japanese woman is found murdered in the shadow of a warehouse owned by one of Singapore’s most powerful families, Betancourt defies orders and pursues those responsible. What he discovers will bring him into conflict with powerful enemies, and force him to face his personal demons.

WAKING THE TIGER is set in 1939 Singapore. Dripping with sense of place and time, there's something vaguely reminiscent of Chandler's styling, and the excellent Inspector Le Fanu series by Brian Stoddart in the characterisation and plot.

Inspector Maximo Betancourt is working a new beat, that he never wanted. Following the disappearance of his own wife, everything has collapsed around him, including his career. Once a rising star of the Singapore CID, he's been relegated to the Marine Division, adjudicating dockyard disputes and conducting goods inspections.

The discovery of an unidentified Japanese woman, murdered in the shadow of a warehouse owned by one of Singapore's most powerful families, Betancourt investigates, defying orders and social norms, bringing him into conflict with some of the most powerful people in Singapore. In the end, the fate of his wife, and his future with his much-loved young daughter fight the dead woman for attention.

An excellent plot and strong mystery elements are enhanced by the social history lesson that comes with WAKING THE TIGER. Subtly presented, as part of the overall story, this novel touches on the cultural tensions within Singapore and the politics of the time, particularly the attitudes of the ruling classes (including the British) and the way that the tensions sit across the entire region. It all went to a really strong sense of place and time, avoiding at all times that sense of sitting through a lecture.

Part of the success of WAKING THE TIGER was that sense of balance - informative and rich in detail, without being laggy or dragged down by it. Populated by excellent, flawed characters with plenty of their own problems to be getting on with that remain engaging and lively company. Set in a place and time that's beautifully evoked, never once resorting towards tell, not show, WAKING THE TIGER was a very entertaining and rewarding read.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

George Clooney lookalikes and Mumbai eunuchs: an interview with Vaseem Khan

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the latest weekly instalment of our 9mm interview series for 2021. This author interview series has now been running for over a decade, and today marks the 221st overall edition. 

Thanks for reading over the years. I've had tonnes of fun chatting to some amazing writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you. 

My plan is to to publish 40-50 new author interviews in the 9mm series this year. You can check out the full list of of past interviewees here. Some amazing writers.

If you've got a favourite crime writer who hasn't yet been featured, let me know in the comments or by sending me a message, and I'll look to make that happen for you. Even as things with this blog may evolve moving forward, I'll continue to interview crime writers and review crime novels.

Today I'm very pleased to welcome cricket-loving crime writer Vaseem Khan to Crime Watch. Vas is the author of two crime series set in India. The Baby Ganesh Agency series (five novels and two novellas) brings classic crime stylings to modern-day Mumbai. The 'cosy' series stars retired Mumbai police Inspector Ashwin Chopra and his sidekick, a baby elephant named Ganesha. While the series has struck a chord with critics and readers, hit the bestseller list, been translated into 15 languages, won a Shamus Award, and seen Vas appear on BBC television, as Vas notes in our interview below, it was a long road to his breakout debut, THE UNEXPECTED INHERITANCE OF INSPECTOR CHOPRA. 

Most recently Vas published an historical mystery that introduced a new hero, Inspector Persis Wadia of the Bombay Police, India’s first female police detective. Set in 1950, "just after Indian Independence, the horrors of Partition and the assassination of Gandhi", MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE got great reviews and is set to kickstart a new series. 

But for now, Vaseem Khan becomes the latest author to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM INTERVIEW WITH VASEEM KHAN

 

1. Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly. Bosch is an LAPD detective with an unerring sense of mission. I call him the last gunslinger in Hollywood. Connelly creates great plots, but it’s the character of Harry Bosch that draws me back. Lean, mean, and answerable only to his own sense of justice. 

One of my author highlights was meeting Connelly at a book signing in London. He and I shared a publicity agent and she introduced me to him so we could have a chat. And by chat, I mean so I could mumble inane superfan ramblings about how incredible his books were, how amazing the buttons on his shirt were, etc etc. You know the drill. He was kind enough to sign a book for me, made out to the lead character of my own Baby Ganesh Agency series, Inspector Chopra of the Mumbai police. 

I told Connelly that Chopra is driven by the same relentless sense of justice that drives Bosch, in a country where if you have money, power or fame you can often escape the consequences of your actions. Mumbai, as the home of Bollywood, has that in common with LA.

 

I think Connelly liked the comparison.

2. What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams. I read this as a kid and was hooked on the story of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and the other rabbits, forced to leave their warren and travel across the English countryside to find a new home, encountering every conceivable danger on their epic journey. I especially loved the villain of the piece, General Woundwort, a huge, terrifying, murderous rabbit dictator who didn’t give a rat’s arse what anyone thought and wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything: “Dogs aren’t dangerous!” 

3. Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) - unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

Have you got a box of tissues handy? I wrote seven novels over 23 years, the first when I was 17, a comic fantasy in the Terry Pratchett mould (I’m a huge fan of the Discworld novels). All sent to agents, all rejected. I’ve got over 200 rejection letters. Literary novels, historical, sci fi, fantasy, even a dodgy contemporary romance (where contemporary means ‘erotic’ – only mine was fifty shades of shit). The one thing I learned: when you start off writing you think you’re Hemingway, but you’re actually closer to that guy who writes crap Christmas cracker jokes. The good news? The more you write, the better you get. Write a million words, complete half-a-dozen (unpublished) novels, and you’ll surely reach a standard good enough to publish. All you need now is a big idea and some luck. 

4. Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

Cricket. The greatest sport ever invented. What other game can last five days and you still might not get a result! I play all summer, usually get injured halfway through, then sulk and sit on the sidelines writing and yelling snide remarks about my friends’ on-field performances. I watch a lot of film and like reading about film. I’m a bit of a movie buff. I love SF, but I also love old black and white films – I’m told this is unusual for a person of my heritage. ie. Brown people aren’t supposed to like Casablanca or Citizen Kane!

5. What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

Well, I grew up in east London, a tough neighbourhood, so visitors should buy a stab vest – they don’t tell you that in the tourist brochures when they’re going on about pie and mash in good old east London. But if you do come to Forest Gate, eat at one of the authentic curry houses on Green Street. The food is soooo good. 

I also lived in Bombay for a decade, so it’s a sort of second home for me. If you go there, don’t be frightened of the eunuchs at the traffic lights. They can seem intimidating at first but they’re just earning a crust in a society that hates them, fears them, humiliates them, and marginalises them. Also, don’t mess with cows. Never mess with cows. They’re holy to Hindus and you’ll cause a riot. Go to the Taj Palace Hotel even if you’re not staying there and have a mooch around. There’s some great history there, including a hundred years of signed celebrity pictures on the walls. 

Both my crime series are set in Bombay, one in modern Mumbai (as it’s now called) and one in 1950s Bombay. Bringing the city to life in my books has given me endless pleasure. Read the books and you’ll see that joy translated onto the page, in between the darker descriptions of the city.

6. If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

Only George Clooney. If they put some makeup on him to make him less attractive and sawed off his legs to make him shorter. But I feel he’s generally a good egg, and I think I am too. At least, I’ve tried to go through life with a sense of humour and perspective and a minimum of ego. So, if Mr Clooney is too damned busy to play me, then someone like that, I guess…. Oh. You have a suggestion?... Who?... No. Not Danny DeVito.  

7. Of your writings, which is your favourite or a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?

My first series, the Baby Ganesh series (five books and two novellas, beginning with THE UNEXPECTED INHERITANCE OF INSPECTOR CHOPRA) is sold around the world and gave me a great career. But when I wanted to branch out and do something new I really had to wrack my brain. My first few ideas were summarily thrown out by my publisher. I felt like a schoolboy who’d failed his exams. Or a puppy that had just shat the bed. But then Persis Wadia, the heroine of MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE, came to me, almost fully formed. 

Persis is India’s first female police Inspector and finds herself tasked to solve the politically-charged murder of a senior British diplomat living in Bombay in 1950. Persis is ambitious, smart, tough, and not prone to social niceties. A woman in an intensely patriarchal society. Writing her wasn’t easy, but the reception the book has received from national critics and readers has left me feeling it was the right thing to do. It’s a story for our times, even though it’s set seventy years in the past.

8. What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

I was at work. My agent called me to tell me I had a four-book deal with Hodder for the Baby Ganesh Agency series. I let out a little shriek, the sort of sound you make when your bits get caught in your pant zipper. A couple of months later I was shoved onto the BBC Breakfast sofa with six million people watching to launch THE UNEXPECTED INHERITANCE OF INSPECTOR CHOPRA. Now that was an incredible feeling!

9. What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

I went to a book festival in Newcastle from London on crutches. I’d broken my ankle playing cricket but had committed to speak and I NEVER pull out of an event even if I have to crawl over broken glass to get there (it’s disrespectful to both organisers and readers to advertise that you’re coming and then not show up).

Other unusual happenings: a very elderly man napping in a wheelchair at an event I was speaking at woke up and told me to be quiet as I was disturbing his sleep; Mick Herron, the brilliant spy thriller writer, bought me an ice cream at Harrogate after we were on a panel together; I’ve been mistaken multiple times for the only other brown writer at an event; I once broke down with fellow crime author Abir Mukherjee, and we had to juggle tennis balls on the side of the road to earn money for petrol. (OK. That last one is a lie, but we did break down, and a kindly passing motorist who knew about cars told us we were out of oil.) 

Thank you Vas, we appreciate you chatting to Crime Watch. 

You can read more about Vaseem Khan and his writing here, and follow him on Twitter. 

Review: THE AOSAWA MURDERS

THE AOSAWA MURDERS by Riku Onda, translated by Alison Watts (Bitter Lemon, 2020)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

On a stormy summer day the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party. The occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. But the youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery. 

The police are convinced that Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako’ and witness to the discovery of the murders.

Could a beautiful blind teenager really have killed her whole family? Thirty years after a horrifying 1973 gathering where 17 people died from poison-laced drinks during a party at the home of a prominent local family, Makiko Saiga is interviewed. An author and childhood neighbour of the Aosawa family, her book that she wrote as a university student a decade after that fateful day left open the implication that someone other than the prime suspect, a deliveryman who hung himself and left a confession months after the murders, may have been involved. Makiko’s not the only one to wonder about Hisako, the blind daughter and sole surviving member of the family. But what is the real truth at the heart of this tragedy?

In a book that won the 59th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel in 2006, Onda takes readers on a beguiling and unusual ride. The story unfolds from a variety of perspectives: snatches from an interview with Makiko Saiga where we only read her answers and not the unseen narrator’s questions, interviews in the same style with the housekeeper, the detective, and others involved in the original case, excerpts from Saiga’s bestselling book about the case, and segments of a new manuscript by another writer.

It's a kaleidoscopic method of storytelling, and readers may have to shake things together in their head to try to form and see some sort of clear picture from the various shards. The heat and humidity of the seaside town, known only as K___, adds to the discomforting and strange atmosphere. An unusual and absorbing tale from a bold storyteller.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir. You can heckle him on Twitter. 

Review: A GREATER GOD

A GREATER GOD by Brian Stoddart (Selkirk, 2018)

Reviewed by Alyson Baker

Superintendent Chris Le Fanu returns to Madras from Penang where he leaves his new Straits Chinese love interest, Jenlin Koh, and a tempting new post in police intelligence there. He finds Hindu-Muslim tension on the rise in Madras, and his friends and subordinates Mohammad Habibullah and Jackson Caldicott at loggerheads as a result. A series of Muslim murders around the Presidency adds more tension. Le Fanu's arch enemy, Inspector-General Arthur "The Jockey" Jepson is reacting recklessly to the new conditions, then Le Fanu has to travel to Hyderabad where his former housekeeper and lover Roisin McPhedren is seriously ill. 

Le Fanu swings between his personal and professional challenges as a gang of revolutionaries and Hindu nationalists from North India travel south to aggravate the troubles. Le Fanu and Jepson clash head-on as the latter causes several policemen to be killed, and Le Fanu is losing support because his main civil service protectors are leaving Madras. Just as he seems close to overcoming all these problems, news arrives that Jenlin Koh is on board a ship reported missing near Ceylon. How will Le Fanu cope?

It is 1925 and Superintendent Chris Le Fanu has returned to Madras from the Straits  a greater godSettlement, fending off multiple job offers while trying to work out who is on a killing spree targeting Muslims, and which romantic relationship to pursue.

This is the fourth outing for Le Fanu, and the first I have read.  The setting is riveting; the beginning of the end of the Raj, with political posturing becoming more and more divisive.  Le Fanu’s boss Jepson is an old style incompetent racist colonial to the point of insanity, and there is a range of colonial attitudes in the characters, right through to the liberal Le Fanu, who is not unblemished in his attitudes to others; “We Indians are always ready to help, sir” quips one of his staff, Assistant Superintendent Mohammad Habibullah (Habi). 

Along with Habi, Le Fanu has head of Special Branch, Jackson Caldicott, in his corner.  Habi and Caldicott are relieved to have Le Fanu back, given the increasingly erratic behaviour of Jepson and the spate of Muslim killings. But Le Fanu has a lot on his mind, the Governor and Chief Secretary of the Government of Madras (Le Fanu supporters) are both moving on, and want to get rid of Jepson and replace him with Le Fanu; the Chief of Police and Military for the Nizam of Hyderabad wants him to work for them, and Le Fanu was offered a position in Penang at the end of his last adventure.

To make things even more complicated for Le Fanu, his ex-fiancée, Roisin McPhedran, enters his life again (in Hyderabad), just when he has started a new relationship with Jenlin Koh (in Penang). Le Fanu blunders through the novel on not much sleep, lots of alcohol and the blokeish support of his mates.  He is a far from perfect character – suffering from PTSD post action in Mesopotamia, and quite neglectful of those close to him and whose admiration for him is unstinting.  Stoddart manages to painlessly cram an awful lot of historical detail into the novel, and there is some light relief by way of every man and his dog knowing all Le Fanu’s business (due to most of them running informants) and the under-stress banter of the men.

I was in India a few year’s ago and met a young Muslim man in Rajasthan who passed himself off as a Christian for safety reasons, so was intrigued by the historical emergence of militant Hindu nationalism, and the conflicts between Hindu and Muslim, which are far from over.  The novel has great descriptions of the bustle of Indian cities, and the (even then) widening gap between urban rich and urban poor.

The only frustration I had with the novel was the female voices being either off stage, mediated by men, or fleeting.  There are some great female characters, but we never really get to meet them – and more importantly they never get to meet each other!  Which I suppose is quite accurate for the ruling British and Indian culture of the time, but frustrating for the reader now.  There isn’t really a mystery to solve either, it is quite clear who (in general terms) is on a murder spree, but the narrowing down of the targets, and the conflicts about when and how to act to not exacerbate the situation, are gripping.

Alyson Baker is a crime-loving librarian in Nelson, New Zealand. This review was first published on her blog, which you can check out here. 

Review: PHNOM PENH EXPRESS

PHNOM PENH EXPRESS by Johan Smits (Mekong Media, 2010)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

A young Cambodian returns home. 

A diamond shipment goes missing.

A foreign assassin arrives in Phnom Penh.

And then there's the chocolate - lots of it. 

Phirun is determined to make it as Cambodia's first chocolate chef. But things don't go quite as plannned when he gets unwittingly caught up in a deadly turf war between rivalling diamond mafia and those who are after him. Falling in love with a mysterious Khmer-Australian doesn't help him. 

Throw in an overzealous post-9/11 American intelligence officer and a corrupt Belgian ex-Colonel, from Tel Aviv through Belgium and Bangkok right up to Phnom Penh - in this fast read of crime and intrigue, chocolates have never tasted so good!

I love travelling, and I love mystery writing, so whenever I'm abroad I like to dip into the local genre where I can, even collecting books from the places I've travelled. Ahead of three weeks in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam a few years ago I'd looked up some possibilities ahead of time, so I knew what to look for in the bookshops. Landing in Bangkok, I grabbed some John Burdett thrillers (his Sonchai Jitpleecheep series is excellent) and this then-new Cambodian-set crime novel. 

Written by a Belgian expat who'd spent years in Cambodia, PHNOM PENH EXPRESS is not your typical southeast Asian crime novel (not that they're all homogenous of course - far from it - but this one has some particularly unique flourishes). An international thriller with a chocolatier at its heart. 

Phirun has a dream. Half Cambodian and half Belgian, he wants to combine his heritages by making it as Cambodia's first chocolate chef. But his plans go awry when a shipment of chocolates containing diamonds is mistakenly delivered to his chocolate shop in Phnom Penh. That's just the first misstep in what becomes a dangerous and slightly madcap dive into the world of international diamond smuggling. Rival 'diamond mafia' in the middle of a turf war zero in. Rather than dealing with customers who he makes happy with his chocolate creations, Phirun is faced with a far nastier and less forgiving world full of diamond smugglers, arms traders, and professional assassins. 

As the same time, he gets romantically entangled with an intriguing Khmer-Australian. 

Danger and humor mix throughout PHNOM PENH EXPRESS. Smits, a Belgian who has spent years in Cambodia, gives his hero that same ‘insider-outsider’ perspective and takes readers on a journey through modern Phnom Penh in all its fragrant glory and grime. 

This is a solid read; a rather straightforward story and writing style that’s boosted by the vivid setting, unusual characters and events, and a vein of sardonic humour. When I read the book it suffered a little from comparison with Burdett's Bangkok thrillers (which provide a similarly vivid insight into a southeast Asian city while having stronger characters, deeper issues, and crackling prose), but PHNOM PENH EXPRESS still has something to offer too and is worth a look. 

Smits gives readers a sensory experience of Phnom Penh, from the pervasive aroma of fermented fish to the karaoke soundtrack beloved by citizens. The situation is a little surreal, and there's some lovely wry humour in what can at times seem a bit of a madcap story, careening around the globe. All centred on a local guy who just wants to make chocolates. A good beach read. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards. You can heckle him on Twitter. 

Review: THE GOOD SON

THE GOOD SON by You-Jeong Jeong, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Little, Brown, 2018)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Yu-jin is a good son, a model student and a successful athlete. But one day he wakes up covered in blood. There's no sign of a break-in and there's a body downstairs. It's the body of someone who Yu-jin knows all too well. 

Yu-jin struggles to piece together the fragments of what he can remember from the night before. He suffers from regular seizures and blackouts. He knows he will be accused if he reports the body, but what to do instead? Faced with an unthinkable choice, Yu-jin makes an unthinkable decision. 

Through investigating the murder, reading diaries, and looking at his own past and childhood, Yu-jin discovers what has happened. The police descend on the suburban South Korean district in which he lives. The body of a young woman is discovered. Yu-jin has to go back, right back, to remember what happened, back to the night he lost his father and brother, and even further than that.

There seems to have been a great rise in appreciation and appetite or translated crime writing in the past decade or so, spurred no doubt by the 'Scandi Crime Wave' phenomena, but going more broadly than that too. We've seen French author Fred Vargas win multiple awards in the UK for the English translations of her work, Romanian bestseller EO Chirovici launched in English in a big way, and plenty of other great tales brought to English readers, particularly from continental Europe. 

International publishers have been a little slower to plunder the treasures that have been delighting non-English speakers in Asian countries and languages, sometimes for decades. So it's great to see the recent mini-wave of Japanese crime fiction getting translated (Keigo Higashino, Natsuo Kirino, Miyuki Miyabe, Fuminori Nakamura, Masako Togawa, Seicho Matsumoto, Hideo Yokoyama, etc). 

Anglophile readers now get a chance to experience the provocative storytelling of million-selling and award-winning South Korean crime writer You-Jeong Jeong. THE GOOD SON is her first novel to be translated into English (she’d already been translated into several other languages).

A young man who has suffered from seizures and a mysterious ailment throughout his life wakes in a bloodied haze, only to discover his mother’s razor-slashed body at the bottom of the stairs of the house they share near the Incheon waterfront outside of Seoul. He has snatched memories of his mother calling his name the night before: but did she want his help, or his mercy? 

Realizing a call to the police would mean instant arrest, he spends the following days cleaning up, fending off his family’s calls, and trying to work out just what happened. He was once the good son, but is he now a killer? Who can he trust? 

Yeong (and Kim’s translation) takes readers on a confronting ride into mental illness, twisted family relationships, and the unclear realm of memory vs reality. This is not a comfortable read, or a traditional crime novel with a cop or outside sleuth at its heart. 

Guided by the first-person narration of an unreliable, tormented young man, readers are plunged into a harrowing tale that builds in an elegant and disturbing way. We slowly uncover the truth, via Yu-Jin’s skewed perspective, with plenty of secrets and horrors being revealed. 

Something different, THE GOOD SON is an atmospheric, creepy thriller from a master storyteller.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards. You can heckle him on Twitter. 

Review: FOOLS' RIVER

FOOLS' RIVER by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime, 2017)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

The two most difficult days in Bangkok writer Poke Rafferty's life begin with an emergency visit from Edward Dell, the almost-boyfriend of his teenage daughter, Miaow. The boy's father, Buddy, a late-middle-aged womanizer who has moved to Bangkok for happy hunting, has disappeared, and money is being siphoned out of his bank and credit card accounts. It soon becomes apparent that Buddy is in the hands of a pair of killers who prey on Bangkok's -sexpats-; when the accounts are empty, he'll be found, like a dozen others, floating facedown in a Bangkok canal with a weighted cast on his unbroken leg. His money is already almost gone. Over forty-eight frantic hours, Poke does everything he can to work the case before it's too late for him to do any good.

Bangkok is a city unlike any other, and Hallinan's excellent Poke Rafferty series brings it to vivid, messy life for mystery lovers. Over the course of several books, Hallinan does a great job invigorating readers' senses, provoking thought with his plotlines and underlying issues, and engaging the emotions through the characters and their relationships.

It's a well-rounded, multi-layered series that offers plenty within its pages.

This eighth instalment sees travel writer turned sleuth Poke Rafferty on an interesting precipice, personally. His wife and love of his life, former Patpong bar queen Rose, is heavily pregnant. Their 'modern family', which includes streetgirl-turned-adopted daughter Miaow, is about to grow. But Rose is worried due to her history that she hasn't shared with Poke. Meanwhile a friend of Miaow's is worried about his wayward father vanishing; Rose is keen to get Poke investigating, out of the way.

Reading a Timothy Hallinan book is a delight. There's a wee zing to his writing that combined with the vibrancy and complexity of the setting brings something little fresh to his crime tales. There's plenty going on away from the main mystery plot, and interesting character arcs or progressions for long-time fans of the series. I'm not sure if this would be the best first introduction to the Poke Rafferty series for new readers, as you'll get even more out of the book if you already understand some of the character relationships and background. It could be read as a standalone, and is a very good read regardless, but for me personally I'd advise going back and sampling a few of the earlier tales first. You may well find yourself devouring them all, book after book.

Another very good read from a very good writer. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards. You can heckle him on Twitter. 

Review: THE CORONER'S LUNCH

THE CORONER'S LUNCH by Colin Cotterill

Reviewed by Shane Donald

Laos, 1978: Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old medical doctor, has been unwillingly appointed the national coroner of newly-socialist Laos. Though his lab is underfunded, his boss is incompetent, and his support staff is quirky to say the least, Siri’s sense of humor gets him through his often frustrating days.

When the body of the wife of a prominent politician comes through his morgue, Siri has reason to suspect the woman has been murdered. To get to the truth, Siri and his team face government secrets, spying neighbors, victim hauntings, Hmong shamans, botched romances, and other deadly dangers. Somehow, Siri must figure out a way to balance the will of the party and the will of the dead.

A criticism often made of the ‘cozy’ in detective fiction is that it lacks the subtleties of more realistic types of crime fiction. Settings like rural villages form the backdrop and the detective is never a police officer; I’ve read cozies where the sleuth has been a florist or a maid or a stay-at-home mum pondering whether or not to return to work. Cozies are sometimes dismissed as providing comfort reading with a familiar protagonist and settings where there is murder but it’s seldom bloody or brutal.

On the surface Colin Coterill’s THE CORONER'S LUNCH meets most of the above criteria. Dr. Siri Paiboun is a doctor (not a policeman) in 1970s Laos. While he does live in the capital Ventiane, not a lot happens. The revolution has ended, the new government is establishing itself and a lot of the population has crossed the Mekong River into Thailand to escape. This is where Dr. Siri comes in. After being sent to France as boy to study and qualifying as a doctor he meets his future wife and follows her into the communist party. Returning to Laos, he joins the revolution and tends the wounded. The story opens after the death of his wife and the overthrow of the government. Now aged 70, Siri is looking forward to a quiet retirement. Fate has other plans. Told that the former national coroner has crossed the river, Siri makes the reasonable objection that he has practiced medicine on the living, not the dead. However, he takes up his new post because it will give him ample opportunity for making fun of the new regime. A reluctant revolutionary, Siri suspects the new government will be as corrupt as the monarchy was.

Part of the charm of this series is the relationships that Siri forms with other characters. In the morgue he comes to know Nurse Dtui and Mr Geung, his morgue assistant, and takes an interest in their lives, while never missing a chance to make trouble for his much younger superior. When the bodies of two Vietnamese pilots, shot down in the war pop up, Siri is called in to examine the bodies. He makes the acquaintance of Phosy, a police detective, and starts to investigate how the pilots really died. He is aided and abetted by his best friend Civilai, a minister in the new government, who has the same doubts about the new regime as Siri does.

As Siri goes about his investigations, he hears an assassin has been hired to kill him. And on top of all this, Siri discovers he is the host for the shamanic spirit Yeh Ming…which explains why he can now see ghosts, but not talk to them.

When this book was published it was compared to THE NUMBER 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY by Robert McCall Smith. The comparison isn’t apt, as I feel THE CORONER'S LUNCH is much more of a detective novel, with murder, rather than an examination of ‘philosophical’ crimes.

The depiction of 1970s Laos was an eye opener for me, as I’ve never been there, though this series makes me want to visit. The image of Siri racing off on his trusty motorbike along a rice paddy to get to the local high school in order to convince the science teacher to examine some evidence because she’s the only one with chemicals, gives you some idea of the setting; the USSR is a new ally, and the Americans have left, taking a lot of the trappings of modern life with them. Siri’s hero is Maigret and he aims to find the truth wherever it lies.

This series is into its 12th novel now (THE RAT CATCHER'S OLYMPICS is set in 1980 at the Moscow Olympic Games). I really enjoy reading this series because it does feel like seeing an old friend but also because it has a protagonist in his 70s who shows age is just a number and that life is to be lived. Yes, there are aspects of the cozy here, but THE CORONER'S LUNCH is a detective story that will show you a part of the world that might be new and a protagonist that is hard to forget.

Shane Donald is a New Zealander living in Taiwan. An avid reader with 3,000 books in his home, he completed a dissertation on Ngaio Marsh for his MA degree, and also has a PhD in applied linguistics