21 Immortals: Inspector Mislan and the Yee Sang Murders in Around the World in 80 Books

Aug 22, 2020 Tony rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, novels, setting-asia

I'm always on the lookout for crime fiction from other countries, so I was excited to see this first book in a new series by a Malaysian author. Originally published by a small press in Malaysia a decade ago, it's the first of three police procedurals set in contemporary Kuala Lumpur. The hero is Mislam Latif, a workaholic divorced police inspector with a keen eye for the best food spots in the city. He's cut from the same honest cloth as the heroes of many Western police procedurals, with the n I'm always on the lookout for crime fiction from other countries, so I was excited to see this first book in a new series by a Malaysian author. Originally published by a small press in Malaysia a decade ago, it's the first of three police procedurals set in contemporary Kuala Lumpur. The hero is Mislam Latif, a workaholic divorced police inspector with a keen eye for the best food spots in the city. He's cut from the same honest cloth as the heroes of many Western police procedurals, with the notable exception that his young son lives with him (this isn't as much as an impediment to his work as one might think, as there's a live-in maid who does most of the caregiving).

This case involves the strange murder of a fashion tycoon and his family, who have been staged in a tableau around a traditional Chinese New Year meal of yee sang. What follows is a pretty straightforward cop procedural, as Mislan and his assistant follow various investigative threads, get the help of various technical expects (including a stereotype of a computer hacker and a sexy coroner who naturally becomes Mislan's romantic interest), call in favors, and attempt to fend off all manner of internal politics and corruption.

The author worked as a police inspector in Kuala Lumpur for a decade, so the rhythms and tone of the policework comes across well. However, the complications arising from various competing ranks of police bureaucracy with their own interests (and acronyms) gets a little hard to follow. It felt like every forty pages or so, there was another meeting in a police office with 6-7 people all leveling various threats about taking the case away or firing Mislan or firing his boss. That all could have been handled with more clarity and nuance.

On the whole, the writing is fairly workmanlike -- clipped phrases, short sentences, simple language. Some aspects would benefit from a further round of light editing -- for example, Mislan's boss is in the story from the very beginning, but all of a sudden, halfway through the book, a paragraph suddenly appears that provides the basic details of her physical appearance and career with the police. That sort of info-dump should come at the outset, not after she's already appeared in five scenes. Another minor example is that the term "Secret Societies" is abbreviated as "SS" throughout, which kept pulling me (as a Western reader) out every time characters talk about the SS this and the SS that.

That said -- there's a fair amount to like in terms of the cultural context for the book. There are tons of food scenes, and I kept racing to the internet to look up what people were eating and then drooling over photos. The incessant smoking and drinking of iced coffee felt very of the place. Another aspect that was interesting was the extent to which characters of differing ethnic backgrounds (Chinese vs. Malay, etc.) weren't particularly cross-culturally fluent. All in all, definitely worth checking out if you like crime novels from other countries or just have a particular interest in Malaysia. There are two more books in the series, but I'm not clear if those will also be released in the West or not. ...more

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