I was in Singapore for a week so I decided to look up Singaporean books to expand my understanding a little bit. It needed to be something I could read on an airplane, and it needed to be very Singapore. I landed on Aunty Lee’s Delights after seeing Ovidia Yu’s name come up in several “Must-Read: Singapore” lists.
Aunty Lee is an established lady of a certain age and class in Singapore. She’s also a bit — well, maybe more than a bit — of a busybody. There’s one thing she’s not, though, and that is a “tai tai” – a rich lady who idles about gossiping, playing mah jong, and shopping. Instead, after the death of her beloved husband, she opened her own catering company and restaurant, and keeps busy with the help of her housekeeper Nina.
Shortly into the story, a body is found in Sentosa, the rich touristy area of Singapore. Aunty Lee loves gossip so immediately starts wondering who and how…and then one of her dinner guests also disappears. Aunty Lee is sure they are connected. Hijinks ensue.
The cast of characters is exactly what you want if you are an Agatha Christie fan. We have Aunty Lee’s slightly oblivious but seemingly good-hearted stepson Mark, his grating social-climber wife, a suspicious elderly Australian tourist couple, a distraught friend of the missing lady, and of course a variety of vaguely related dinner guests. Investigating the murder is rookie Police Commissioner Raja, and his boss Salim, who of course knows Aunty Lee and her late husband from back in the day.
The best part of the book by far is the character of Aunty Lee:
“You say it’s not my business, but all hungry people are my business.” – Aunty Lee
She cooked the way some people drove – while carrying on conversations, applying lipstick, and texting messages – trusting the instinct that came with long practice and only focusing on the main task when something unexpected came up or went wrong. Fortunately Aunty Lee did not drive.
I love an old lady detective: often overlooked and underestimated, they have a deep understanding of how information actually travels and how relationships actually work. They have the life experience to intuit what your rookie dude cop simply cannot, and are not distracted by sex appeal or beholden to procedure. This all came through in the descriptions of Aunty Lee’s daily life — cooking, current and past relationships, busybodiness, heartbreak, and grit. It’s super refreshing to read a character of a Singaporean woman written by a Singaporean woman, you know? Also, Singaporean food is great, and there are a lot of lovely food descriptions, if that’s your thing!
I also liked the little insights into Singaporean society, so smooth on the surface but full of internal contrasts:
“I will take down your statement,” Salim said smoothly. “But that is a separate matter. I still have to follow up on his complaint. Are you here on a domestic helper visa?” “No, I am here on a ‘secret mission to marry a rich man and steal all his money to go back to the Philippines’ visa!”
The pacing is a bit clunky – I wanted more showing and less telling. Despite a lot of exposition, some parts of the chronology were still a little confusing. It’s a fairly predictable mystery, in that there were many suspicious characters, and one of them is definitely the guilty party (not a spoiler, and the criminal’s identity didn’t surprise me despite the red herrings.)
I give it solid 3 stars for an extremely readable cozy mystery with a charming lady protagonist. I finished the whole thing on the 4 hour flight home, and I will pick up the next Aunty Lee mystery when I need a little break from heavy reading.
