21 Immortals: Inspector Mislan and the Yee Sang Murders

August 1, 2020
In an upscale Kuala Lumpur neighborhood, the Tham family's bodies are discovered, arranged in a horrific tableau around a traditional New Year's feast. If this were an American procedural, the story would shift quickly into serial-killer territory, but in Kuala Lumpur, Inspector Mislan Latif turns to secret societies, the lords of Malaysia's underworld. Fashion mogul Robert Tham, it turns out, informed on his secret-society bosses in the 1995 sweep that sent scores of gang members to prison. Puzzling clues emerge: the victims were killed with cyanide gas pumped into their car, which security cameras reveal was returned to Tham's office by a mysterious woman. And the police department's notoriously connected brass is simultaneously demanding the case's rapid resolution and obstructing Mislan's investigation. This English-language debut of an award-winning series takes readers to a darker, edgier Malaysia than that of Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh cozies; fans of John Burdett and Timothy Hallinan will be drawn to the gritty KL streets and to Mislan's disregard for politics as he pursues justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)