Paperback: After losing her husband, Rosie Lee could have become one of Singapore's "tai tai", an idle rich lady. Instead, she is building a culinary empire from her restaurant, Aunty Lee's Delights, where spicy Singaporean meals are graciously served to locals and tourists alike.
But when a body is found in one of Singapore's tourist havens and one of her guests fails to show at a dinner party, Aunty Lee knows that the two events 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 may mask a deeper purpose.
Investigating the murder are Police Commissioner Raja and Senior Staff Sergeant Salim, who quickly discover that Aunty Lee's sharp nose for intrigue can sniff out clues that elude law enforcers.
"But why?" SSS Salim had to ask. Why did an upper-middle-class Tai-Tai worry about such sordid things? "Why are you so interested?"
(Aunty Lee) "Because the two girls who died both came to eat in my restaurant. For me that makes it personal. If they ate my cooking, they are my guests and they are my family."
Wise, witty, charming, Aunty Lee's Delights (2013) - the first book in the Singaporean Mystery series - is a spicy mystery about love, friendship, and food in Singapore, where money flows freely and people of many religions and ethnicities coexist peacefully, but where tensions lurk just below the surface, sometimes with deadly consequences.
About the author: Ovidia Yu is one of Singapore's best-known and most acclaimed writers. Since dropping out of medical school to write for the theater, she has had more than thirty plays produced in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, including the Edinburgh Fringe First Award-winning play The Woman in a Tree on the Hill.
The author of a number of mysteries that have been published in Singapore and India, Ovidia Yu received a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the University of Iowa's International Writers Program and has been a writing fellow at the National University of Singapore. She speaks ferquently at literary festivals and writers' conferences throughout Asia.
Despite her writing career, when she is recognized in Singapore it is usually because of her stint as a regular celebrity guest on Singapore's version of the American television game show Pyramid. Check out the author's blog for all updates.
The second book in the Singaporean Mystery series featuring Aunty Rosie Lee, Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials, will be out on 30 September 2014.
Rating: 3/5
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