Nury Vittachi: The Feng Shui Detective

By GILBERT WONG*

Nury Vittachi is a fine newspaper columnist in his home town, Hong Kong, and known as something of a bon vivant with a taste for satire.

Considering what passes for contemporary crime fiction, these murder mysteries can seem quaint, though the genre has an honourable lineage descended from Holmes and Watson.

Vittachi's duo are the feng shui consultant C.F. Wong, a man who conceals his intelligence behind a harmless exterior, and Jo McQuinnie, a young American girl intent on researching the ways of the East for a college project.

Vittachi sets the tales in that collision of culture, Singapore, where Hakka, Malay, Cantonese, Hindu and Anglo-Saxons meet and usually only half understand each other.

By their very nature, murder mysteries are contrived, but Vittachi lightens the mixture with gentle satirical prods as cultures clash - East versus West, young versus old - while adding authenticity through his sharp ear for fractured English and observation of the Singaporean mania for food.

As one might expect from the genre, the only violence happens off-page, or to special dishes which are demolished at speed. The feng shui problems which Wong is originally hired to solve before stumbling on the homicides, generally become a mere plot element, but even so Wong's explanations show that Vittachi is no slacker when it comes to research.

A fresh and welcome addition to the mystery genre.

Duffy and Snelgrove

$24.95

* Gilbert Wong is the Herald books editor.