27 August 2020

Review: MEDDLING & MURDER, Ovidia Yu

  • format: Kindle (Amazon)
  • File Size: 847 KB
  • Print Length: 256 pages
  • Publisher: One More Chapter (April 28, 2017)
  • Publication Date: April 28, 2017
  • Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B01MQFCSVL
Synopsis (Amazon)

A delightfully warm and witty mystery from one of Singapore's best-known and most acclaimed writers, perfect for fans of Alexander McCall Smith’s NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY.

Aunty Lee is on the case!

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?

Now the race is on for Aunty Lee to get to the bottom of the mystery…and save Nina before it’s too late!

My Take

Although this is #4 in the Aunty Lee mystery series, I really didn't feel that I had missed much from not reading earlier titles. I would categorise the novel as a cozy, but there are also embedded some quite serious comments on the development of Singapore, and the impact of things like immigration of groups from China and India. There were references to earlier books in the series.

In style it reminded me a little of the Inspector Singh novels by Shamini Flint - also a Singaporean author. Although of course while Inspector Singh is a policeman, usually on an "official case", Aunty Lee is a "noseyparker".

Anyway, a fairly quiet sort of read, although some serious events do occur.


My rating: 4.4

About the author
Ovidia Yu is one of Singapore's best-known and most acclaimed writers. As well as award winning short stories and a children's book, she has had over thirty plays performed and is author of the Aunty Lee books, featuring a crime solving Tai Tai, and the Colonial Crime series set in Colonial Singapore.

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