Singapore Sapphire (A Harriet Gordon Mystery, #1)

by A. M. Stuart

Early twentieth-century Singapore is a place where a person can disappear, and Harriet Gordon hopes to make a new life for herself there, leaving her tragic memories behind her--but murder gets in the way.

Singapore, 1910--Desperate for a fresh start, Harriet Gordon finds herself living with her brother, a reverend and headmaster of a school for boys, in Singapore at the height of colonial rule. Hoping to gain some financial independence, she advertises her services as a personal secretary. It is unfortunate that she should discover her first client, Sir Oswald Newbold--explorer, mine magnate and president of the exclusive Explorers and Geographers Club--dead with a knife in his throat.

When Inspector Robert Curran is put on the case, he realizes that he has an unusual witness in Harriet. Harriet's keen eye for detail and strong sense of duty interests him, as does her distrust of the police and her traumatic past, which she is at pains to keep secret from the gossips of Singapore society.

When another body is dragged from the canal, Harriet feels compelled to help with the case. She and Curran are soon drawn into a murderous web of treachery and deceit and find themselves face-to-face with a ruthless cabal that has no qualms about killing again to protect its secrets.

• ISBN10: 198480264X
• ISBN13: 9781984802644
• Publish Date: 6 August 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Pamela Dorman Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781984802644

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

First in a series taking place in Singapore in 1910, about a woman convicted in England for her suffragette activities who flees to Singapore to assist her brother, a headmaster at a school for British boys.  As her post is unpaid, she advertises for secretarial jobs on the side, and discovers her first commissioner brutally murdered.

It's a compelling start to a series, but this first book leaves the characters' dynamic with each other unsettled at the end, so I didn't like it as much I would have otherwise.  Still the plotting was strong and well thought out, though some aspects of the puzzle were obvious to the reader, either because they were telegraphed early on, or because the reader has read too many mysteries not to see what was coming.  The characters not having the benefit of 100+ years of mysteries to tap into, their slowness to pick up on what was going on was understandable, if sometimes tedious.

I have the second book in hand on my TBR, and I'm looking forward to seeing the character development in that one.  That will decide me as to whether to go on with the series or not. (Assuming it continues past book 2, of course.)