Detective Inspector Chen is the Singapore Three police department's snake agent - the detective in charge of supernatural and mystical investigatio...
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Jan 15, 2012
Whitaker
rated it: 
Ah, Haw Par Villa. Such fond memories I have it. It used to be known also as Tiger Balm Gardens, and was built by the Haw Par brothers, the makers of Tiger Balm:
As an act of civic goodness, the Haw Par brothers constructed Haw Par Villa. It’s a lovely little theme park in Singapore. Here, you’ll find dioramas of Chinese legends like The Journey to the West. Of course, the most well-known and beloved set of dioramas are the ones that depict the Ten Courts of Hell.
A More...
As an act of civic goodness, the Haw Par brothers constructed Haw Par Villa. It’s a lovely little theme park in Singapore. Here, you’ll find dioramas of Chinese legends like The Journey to the West. Of course, the most well-known and beloved set of dioramas are the ones that depict the Ten Courts of Hell.
A More...
19 comments
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(11 people liked it)
Mar 26, 2010
Terence
rated it: 
It is unfair to any author to wander into a book expecting something and then being disappointed when it's not delivered but I'm human and I can't help it. Reading this book, I had hoped to read something like Barry Hughart's adventures with Master Li and Number Ten Ox (Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was et al.) or Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee stories (Judge Dee at Work: Eight Chinese Detective Stories et al.), except in this case the celestial and infernal bureaucracies
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2 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Mar 27, 2011
Kelly
rated it:
I wanted to love this book, I really did, but I am only giving it three stars instead of two because of the originality. I enjoyed some of it and hated other parts of it. I'm very frustrated with the author and can't believe it was written by an educated Western woman. But more on that later.
The good parts are the unusual premise: the detective, Chen, lives in a technologically advanced futuristic Shanghai as a supernatural detective, investigating those cases that involve demons, gh More...
The good parts are the unusual premise: the detective, Chen, lives in a technologically advanced futuristic Shanghai as a supernatural detective, investigating those cases that involve demons, gh More...
2 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Apr 16, 2009
BunWat
rated it: 
I was in the mood for something fun and this fit the bill perfectly. I enjoyed the whole noir Chinese otherworld detective thing a lot. It teetered on the edge of being a little too gross for me but didn't quite fall in.
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(3 people liked it)
Aug 18, 2008
Christine (AR)
rated it:
Inspector Chen, the human representative of the divine, teams up with Shir Urzh, the demon sensechal, to stop a plague. Buddy cops in hell.
I loved this book. It's really,really well-written, with great characters, fantastic world-building, and a kick-ass plot that rocked along at a screaming pace. At one point, there were three story-lines following three sets of characters, leading to a big show-down at the end, and for me? The fact that I was never disappointed to switch to a dif More...
I loved this book. It's really,really well-written, with great characters, fantastic world-building, and a kick-ass plot that rocked along at a screaming pace. At one point, there were three story-lines following three sets of characters, leading to a big show-down at the end, and for me? The fact that I was never disappointed to switch to a dif More...
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(2 people liked it)
Sep 23, 2007
Trin
rated it: 
Really fantastic fantasy/sci-fi/mystery fusion. Wei Chen is a detective in the slightly futuristic Singapore Three; his area of expertise is the supernatural, specifically dealings between Earth, Heaven, and Hell. Investigating the reappearance as a ghost of a rich girl who supposedly died of anorexia-related complications gets Chen involved with a conspiracy whose origins lie somewhere in the vast bureaucracy of Hell, and also finds him entering into a reluctant and wary partnership with a demo
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5 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Sep 16, 2007
Brownbetty
rated it:
Basically, the sort of book that justifies entire genres. Love, love, love. First off, the prologue was genuinely interesting, and made me want to read the book. In general, I automatically skip prologues. Secondly, this marries myth and science in truly satisfying and creative ways. Thirdly, it has everything: Gods and demons in disguise, police procedure, uneasy alliances that turn to uneasy friendship, a man trapped between love and duty, but not in a stupid way.
The setting i More...
The setting i More...
8 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Nov 30, 2011
Mick
rated it:
The protagonist, Detective Inspector Chin, is forced to accept a demon partner from Hell in order to solve a crime that crosses the jurisdictional lines of Heaven and Hell. Chin is the sole "supernatural" investigator for his department and is regarded by his coworkers with fear and suspicion because of his ability to interact with ghosts, demons and divine beings.
DIC Chin is the stoic type, while his demon partner brings the comic relief. The book starts out a bit slow an More...
DIC Chin is the stoic type, while his demon partner brings the comic relief. The book starts out a bit slow an More...
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(1 person liked it)
Dec 22, 2008
Angela
rated it:
There are any number of reasons why Liz Williams' Snake Agent, the first book of her Detective Inspector Chen novels, is worth your time. The setting is refreshingly different for a supernatural mystery/thriller: futuristic China, where there's a blend of high tech and magic, but wherein the magic and the mythos are pulled out of Chinese sources. There's the hero, neither young nor particularly handsome or dashing, but certainly decent, and adamant about standing up for what he believes in--such
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Oct 14, 2011
Algernon
rated it:
[7/10] Interesting read, a good decision on the part of the author to base the story in Far East Asia and to tap the huge reservoir of chinese mythology for a noir-ish detective novel. The descriptions of the huge urban sprawl of Singapore Three and of the Hell undergound realm were well suited for maintaining the dark atmosphere of the novel, and the main characters were OK without shining. Humor was also treated right, in an understated way, relying more on the situational conflict and pointed
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Jul 27, 2011
Toby
rated it:
Liz Williams' Detective Inspector Chen series starts off with a bang with 'Snake Agent' - the first in a supposedly 4 part series. Set in near future China this novel is interesting and compulsively readable, fusing a huge array of exotic concepts and genres including police procedural, near future Sci Fi, occult magic, goddesses, demons and flitting between parallel worlds.
A shakey partnership between occult detective Chen and demon Zhu Irzh develops during a fast-paced investigation into the More...
A shakey partnership between occult detective Chen and demon Zhu Irzh develops during a fast-paced investigation into the More...
May 02, 2011
Carol
rated it:
Really loved it, but more like four and a half stars. I haven't read many books in an Asian setting, much less urban fantasy. Detective Chen is the familiar world-weary but still hopeful police officer who does his best to help people. Williams took that and turned it sideways in a most enjoyable way. The world is something like modern Asia, only cities have been franchised, and Heaven and Hell are real stops on the reincarnation wheel. By the end, <spoiler> I could see how the other fac
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Mar 15, 2011
Sensitivemuse
rated it:
I liked this book because it’s different from the myriads of urban fantasy novels I’ve read in the past. It’s different because it contains Eastern mythology, mysticism and religions. The setting takes place in Singapore (which earns bonus points from me, as this is the first book I’ve read with a setting there). Also, the story line is very dark, noir and very gritty. It’s an interesting blend of fantasy and science fiction and by putting to two together gives you a unique world. I also thought
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Jan 07, 2010
Dan
rated it:
Set in a bizarre futuristic China where demonology works. Apparently the devils' Ministry of Pestilence is creating a plague which will kill a lot of people, and the main character wanders about in Hell trying to prevent it.
It wasn't a bad book, but I felt it was a failure at world-building. Devils are presented as a mess of contradictions. Their entire bureaucracy is apparently built around the goal of annoying the humans, although it's never explained why they care. In the mean More...
It wasn't a bad book, but I felt it was a failure at world-building. Devils are presented as a mess of contradictions. Their entire bureaucracy is apparently built around the goal of annoying the humans, although it's never explained why they care. In the mean More...
Aug 23, 2011
Nikki
rated it:
Snake Agent is mostly urban fantasy, with a touch of cyberpunk if you think about the technology involved in the bioweb, which turned out not to be just background and world-building, but a serious part of the plot. It's notable because it relies more on Eastern mythology and culture than Western: however, as with Liz Williams' other book, Empire of Bones, it didn't feel all that different.
A couple of other reviewers note their problems with Inari, and the lack of importance of female More...
A couple of other reviewers note their problems with Inari, and the lack of importance of female More...
Sep 25, 2010
Princessjay
rated it:
3.5 STARS that I cannot justify rounding up to a 4
A typical Liz Williams work: solid world-building with interesting details, and good (even excellent) writing on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph basis. However.
She cannot create narrative tension for her life! Nor a real climax with an emotional "wowza!" that leaves you satisfied.
Herein are a myriad of story lines, of various levels of interest, involving a myriad of people. Each story, More...
A typical Liz Williams work: solid world-building with interesting details, and good (even excellent) writing on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph basis. However.
She cannot create narrative tension for her life! Nor a real climax with an emotional "wowza!" that leaves you satisfied.
Herein are a myriad of story lines, of various levels of interest, involving a myriad of people. Each story, More...
Nov 05, 2011
Mervi
rated it:
This is a fun book. It’s set in China, in the future, and has Chinese demons and goddesses.
Detective inspector Chen works in Singapore Three which is one of the franchise cities in China. The city is huge and bustling, and has also quite a lot of supernatural activity: ghosts, demons, manifestations of goddesses, exorcisms. Chen is the police officer in charge of investigating the supernatural. Unfortunately, most his fellow officers don’t believe in the supernatural and so Chen is s More...
Detective inspector Chen works in Singapore Three which is one of the franchise cities in China. The city is huge and bustling, and has also quite a lot of supernatural activity: ghosts, demons, manifestations of goddesses, exorcisms. Chen is the police officer in charge of investigating the supernatural. Unfortunately, most his fellow officers don’t believe in the supernatural and so Chen is s More...
Mar 23, 2009
Bruce
rated it:
An engaging blend of mystery, science, fantasy and Chinese mythology that takes place in a unique and totally believable world. The principal character is a detective in the Singapore police station who has the ability to move between the real world and the afterlife. His wife is a demon who has escaped the underworld to be with him. The following paragraph about her comes from early in the book.
"She thought back to the market: a marvelous place, filled with lights. When ev More...
"She thought back to the market: a marvelous place, filled with lights. When ev More...
Mar 27, 2011
Keith
rated it:
This is a fairly standard police procedural. The protagonist is a detective with special gifts that evoke fear and avoidance from his colleagues, he does have a powerful protector, he pursues leads to people and places his superiors do not sanction and unsurprisingly he teams up with an oddball sidekick to solve a gruesome series of murders that lead into the highest corridors of power. Oh, and he's having troubles with his wife.
What enlivens Snake Agent to a very high plane is that More...
What enlivens Snake Agent to a very high plane is that More...
Sep 07, 2011
WeaselBox
rated it:
4 - 4.5 stars. Very enjoyable. I had bought this years ago because I liked the cover and never got around to reading it until I rediscovered it while reorganizing the bookcases the other day. Chen is a Detective in Singapore 3, a franchise city somewhere on the coast of the South China Sea, assigned to dealing with cases involving the supernatural, more specifically a very bureaucratic Chinese style Heaven and Hell to which the living can travel, providing they have the proper paperwork in or
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Jun 28, 2011
Cera
rated it:
This was well-written, but I didn't like it as much as I expected to and I'm still trying to figure out why. I didn't quite manage to care about the characters, and I put together the mystery from setting clues in a way that I don't think Williams intended.
I've been thinking a lot about authors who write a genre they're not familiar with; there are huge risks to it, but also there's the potential for really exciting work. Genre is what tells the reader what to expect out of a book, a More...
I've been thinking a lot about authors who write a genre they're not familiar with; there are huge risks to it, but also there's the potential for really exciting work. Genre is what tells the reader what to expect out of a book, a More...
Mar 07, 2010
Julie
rated it:
I heard about this series on the horror podcast Pseudopod. The first of the series, the reader is plunged into action in progress so that I repeatedly kept checking for other books because I was sure there was a previous one that started off a bit slower and explained more. Nope. Set in 21st century Singapore, with Asian-flavored Heaven and Hell as mighty influencers of human life, Detective Inspector Chen and his sidekick, Demon Zhu Irzh, must traverse all areas to solve the mysteries that come
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Apr 27, 2008
Felicia
rated it:
I really really liked this book! There were some consistency problems with the end of it, but the journey was innovative. The world is really interesting, and the book combined several genres together with very good success! Refreshing to read an urban paranormal book without a tough-as-nails but emotionally-fragile heroine :) I'll be picking up the others!
Nov 25, 2009
Snail in Danger (Sid)
rated it:
A note to myself, for later: as might be expected, the Chinese characters on the title page are just a translation of the English title. The first character means "snake," the second two mean "police detective."
This is probably more like a 3.5. If you liked The City and the City, you'll probably like this. If you like Kim Harrison, you should give it a whirl. The characters are not very similar, but the settings have some things in common.
Some of t More...
This is probably more like a 3.5. If you liked The City and the City, you'll probably like this. If you like Kim Harrison, you should give it a whirl. The characters are not very similar, but the settings have some things in common.
Some of t More...
Aug 10, 2011
Xin Tian
rated it: 
An awful book. Not sure if it's trying to be a kitsch social commentary, but if it is, it's not doing it very intelligently. The characters are quite plastic, there's nothing about any of them I can really sympathise with (even the damsel in distress, Inari) and there's nothing really gripping about the plot as Chen just zooms to one orientalised location after another. Probably not very well-researched, especially in terms of language.
Maybe readers in America/the UK would love this book. If yo More...
Maybe readers in America/the UK would love this book. If yo More...
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Feb 23, 2010
More than half way through and I'm going to put it down. The book's premise has promise, but the delivery is muddled. I loved Williams' "Banner of Souls" and was hoping for the same kind of detail on and involvement of the crazy biotech and "haunt-tech" she imagined there. It hasn't shown up in this book, which focuses more on spells and spirits (which isn't my favorite kind of thing anyway), though the cover promises "heights of modern cybernetics." It's hinted
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Aug 01, 2011
Wendy
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Feb 25, 2011
Jenn
rated it:
As the GR synopsis for the book states: "John Constantine meets Chow Yun Fat" - yes! I can definitely see that, and love both the films - and graphic novels - that this comparison evokes. But, more than that simple summary, what Liz Williams has created here is an incredible future where whole cities are franchised and mortals on Earth can regularly speak with - and sometimes visit - Heaven and Hell. This book combines elements from several genres I love, in a way that appeals to me so
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Jul 31, 2010
Sherri
rated it:
This book is delicious. I read it with a group last year and we had a lot to talk about it, which I won't recount here. I'll just list off what I liked about it (enough to buy the next 3 books in the series).
First, I enjoyed a book set in a mythos/culture not my own. I can't speak to how accurately this mythos is represented, but it is markedly different from the Western based ones usually found in similar novels. I really found delight in the way the supernatural was interwoven More...
First, I enjoyed a book set in a mythos/culture not my own. I can't speak to how accurately this mythos is represented, but it is markedly different from the Western based ones usually found in similar novels. I really found delight in the way the supernatural was interwoven More...
Jan 30, 2009
Schnaucl
rated it:
I thought this was okay. It was interesting to see an Eastern idea of heaven and hell. It's quite a bit different from the view the West has. Having said that, it was a little confusing why random Westerners turned up an Eastern hell. There's a sentence or two about how everyone probably goes to whatever they believe in, but that gets tricky. Western religions generally don't believe in reincarnation and I don't think of any Western religion where hell would include being turned into a fish
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