AsiaLIFE

The Kingdom gets thrown in with a bunch of crimes, clues, alibis and suspects in Shamini Flint’s latest book. On a recent visit to Phnom Penh, the author of “Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree” talked to Mai Lynn Miller Nguyen. Photo by James Grant.

Our bookshops are stocked with scads of publications about Cambodia. But here’s a new one for you: A murder mystery starring a curry-loving, beer-lusting Sikh policeman. Add in the context of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, and you’ve got yourself a Cambodia-based book like none other.

The aforementioned detective is Inspector Singh, the protagonist of Malaysian author Shamini Flint’s crime fiction series. Thus far, Singh has tackled mysteries in his native Singapore as well as Malaysia and Indonesia, and for the fourth installation, “A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree,” he takes on a case in Cambodia.

An outsider within the Singaporean police force, Singh is sent to Phnom Penh as an observer of the war crimes trials for ASEAN. When a witness is found brutally murdered, Singh becomes embroiled in the intrigue. As he traverses Tuol Sleng, the FCC and Angkor Wat, the detective comes up against a cast of characters with thorny personal histories, relationships and motives.

In “A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree,” Flint aims to introduce readers to Cambodia, past and present. Demonstrating an admirable grasp for someone who has never lived in the country, she highlights some of the issues that Cambodia confronts.

“People here will know the history of Cambodia sufficiently well, but I’m partly writing it for the rest of Asia, who will know about Cambodia’s tragedy only in a couple of bulletin points,” says Flint.

While researching the book, Flint discovered that she had more knowledge about the German holocaust—events that took place longer ago and further away—than the Khmer Rouge period. By referencing the country’s ongoing struggle to move on from the wars and mass killings of the 1970s in a mystery story, Flint aims to reach a wide audience.

“More people read crime,” explains Flint. “If you’re trying to inform people, then there’s no point hiding it in a three-volume history. There are magnificent three-volume histories, but the problem is they’re not widely read.”

A former lawyer, Flint embarked on a second career as an author much like Inspector Singh stumbles upon corpses. She gave up a high-pressure job in corporate law when she became pregnant with her first child. “I assume it was the hormones,” she quips.

When her oldest daughter turned two, Flint realised she couldn’t relate to any of the children’s literature available, a familiar feeling from her childhood in Malaysia. “All the books were very Westerncentric, with white kids doing white kids things,” says Flint. “I always used to feel a sense of dislocation without entirely understanding it.”

So, Flint set out to fill the gap. She created the character of a young Asian girl who lives in Asia, named Sasha for her daughter. There are now 17 stories following Sasha’s various adventures across Asia, including visits to Bali, Beijing and Hong Kong.

The shift from child fiction to crime fiction is not as surprising as it might at first appear. “The Sasha books are about a little girl travelling around Asia, so I thought I’ll do a grown-up version and I’ll have a cop travelling around Asia,” she says.

Just like Agatha Christie and her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, Flint formed a character of a foreign culture. Although Singh is of Indian origin like his creator, she made him of the Sikh sect.

“I can’t quite put my finger on the impulse that lead to Inspector Singh,” she says. “I had just read an article about how Sikhs in the US were being picked on because they were being confused for Muslims. The complication of being a Sikh in the 21st century, I thought that was sort of interesting.”

Flint calls “A Deadly Crime Spree in Cambodia” her biggest challenge yet. When her interest in the Khmer Rouge trials inspired her to place Inspector Singh in Cambodia, she began by reading every book she could about the country. She then visited to confirm her initial ideas, went back to commence writing, and returned again to verify that her descriptions were accurate.

“Some things you can’t imagine,” says Flint. “You can’t imagine S21, you can’t imagine The Killing Fields. You can see pictures, but you need to be there. I found it a fascinating way of learning about a place, aside from the book.”

Once the details were set straight, Flint resumed her standard writing process, composing the mystery aspect of the story. Calling herself a “shoot from the hip” type of person, Flint admits she doesn’t have the plotline envisioned before putting pen to paper.

“I find the last 100 pages quite hard because you’ve got to end it and I don’t tend to know who’s killed whom,” says Flint. “With a murder mystery I’m sitting there going, ‘all right, whodunit?”

To find out how Inspector Singh solves the crime, you’ll simply have to read the book.

“Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree” is available at Monument Books, US$11.50.