By Dennis Fischman

When we read a contemporary mystery set in a place we know, in a culture that’s familiar to us, it’s easier to see the clues sticking out from the weave of the story. We know what’s usual and expected. When something is unusual, or unexpected—when it doesn’t fit—it makes us wonder.

For me, the delight of reading historical mysteries set in faraway lands is the extra step it takes to notice what’s out of place. To pick up the clues, I have to learn what’s normal back then and over there. It’s a painless and enjoyable way of expanding my knowledge, less like a schoolbook and more like making a friend.

“The Angsana Tree Mystery”
By Ovidia Yu.
Constable, 2024.

The Su Lin mysteries by Ovidia Yu offer that kind of pleasure. All of them take place in Singapore, a place I knew nothing about before starting the series. I now appreciate the richness of a local culture where Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, and English people all rubbed shoulders. The books are set in the fraught period before and after WW II, so invasion by Japan and, later, decolonization by the UK are also part of the story.

At the center is our title character, Chen Su Lin. The lame granddaughter of a rich, powerful grandmother—her own parents are long dead—Su Lin must struggle against overbearing relatives and societal prejudices. She is bright and perceptive, and sometimes (like Blanche in Barbara Neely’s Blanche White series) she uses her subordinate position to find out what the official investigators cannot.

Over the eight books in the series I have read so far, Su Lin has progressed from a teenage assistant in the office of British policeman Inspector Thomas Le Froy to a mature young woman who has solved mysteries on her own. There is also a growing romance between the two, based in good part on mutual appreciation of each other’s brains and bravery.

In The Angsana Tree Mystery, an obnoxious auditor has come from Britain to investigate Le Froy (who has been put in charge of the Public Health Service Bureau and its funds). Does this interloper have anything to do with the murder of a foreman at the quarry run by the Pang family, a clan that’s sometimes friendly with the Chens (Su Lin’s family) and sometimes their business rivals? He arrives just as Su Lin finds the daughter of that family standing by the dead man, with blood on her hands. Coincidence?

Also, who is dealing in opium: the Pang family, the Chen family, or somebody else? Who is trying to put the blame for either the murder or the opium, or both, on other people? Will Su Lin’s best friend, Parshanti Shankar, really get married to her fiancé, Dr. Leask, or has his fast-talking, dissolute cousin been sent from England to prevent that? And will Su Lin and Le Froy finally overcome the prejudices on both sides of the divide to get married themselves?

I won’t spoil any of these mysteries: please read the book for yourself! I particularly liked the way this book demonstrated that people are not always what they seem, and also that people can change for the better. To see that, you might want to go back to the first in the series, The Frangipani Tree Mystery, and follow Su Lin from there. (Yes, all the books are named after trees that don’t grow where we live, which gives you another thing to find out about, and that’s another pleasure.)