342 pages
Rating 3.5 ⭐s
You can buy Detective Gone Gray...here You can find out more about Jake Needham...here
The Chinese foreign minister is speaking at a Bangkok university, and there's a diplomatic reception for him before the speech. Like most diplomatic receptions, it's an occasion that's dull as dishwater.
Until it isn't.
The assembled diplomats discover the main doors of the reception hall have been locked. That's when a masked gunman comes in through the back and opens up with a silenced MP5. It's like shooting the proverbial fish in the proverbial barrel. Thirteen dead and nine wounded, including the British ambassador, the Korean ambassador, and the American deputy chief of mission.
The Thai police are overwhelmed, and they ask Interpol to send a homicide investigator to help them. Interpol doesn't investigate homicides, so the regional office asks the Singapore police to lend them an experienced detective.
Inspector Samuel Tay was once a legendary investigator for Singapore's Criminal Investigation Department, but now he's retired. It wasn't exactly voluntary, of course, but that's another story. When he's asked to help the Thai police, he reluctantly agrees. Bangkok's not his favorite place, and the Thai police aren't his favorite people, but retirement is ... well, dull.
Worse, he's getting old, and it's a melancholy feeling to know he's at the end of his career. Just maybe, he thinks, he's got one more big case in him before it really is time to let it all go.
Maybe he does, but there are powerful forces out there that aren't going to let it be this case. If he gets too close to the secret they've hidden behind the slaughter, they've already decided what they'll do.
They'll just kill Samuel Tay, too.
Detective Gone Gray is the 8th in the Inspector Tay novels. I have read very little literature based in South East Asia, well actually I haven't read anything based in South East Asia so this was a refreshing change. I have read "fish out of water develops into bromance" novels before but always the protagonists are from the Anglosphere so a collaboration between a staid, serene retired Singapore cop and a big, uniformed, motor cycle riding Thai cop was new one me. Each seemed to represent the cultures that they were from. Singapore logical, steady organised maybe a little repressed, the other loud, brash and uninhibited. Reading about this culture clash dynamic which I previously knew nothing about was one of the joys of reading this book. It made me realise I need to explore more geographically, albeit from the comfort of reading a novel in an armchair in my home. That is one of the beauties of books. You can broaden your horizons without actually having to go anywhere.
The author does have his little foibles. He tends to describe a lot more than most crime/thriller authors. This is in regards to locations, architecture and even facial descriptions of characters. There does seem to me to have been a trend for a long time to avoid description but I quite like it. It is like going for a meal and not being rushed, and be allowed time to savour every last morsel as opposed to rushing to the end of the meal for the bill. Of course too much is just as bad as not enough. Luckily the author strikes a perfect balance between description and pace.
The character of Inspector Tay is an interesting one, in that he doesn't have any gimmicky flaws eg Poirot was vain, Holmes had huge ego and was possibly bi polar, Kojack was bald and loves lolipops. Tay is absent of drink, drug, family or attitude issues. The nearest thing to a flaw is that he is trying and failing to give up cigarettes. He is just a nice, gentle thoughtful man. He may be a little lonely but this is not brought front and centre but is merely a whisper in the background. It is nice that quiet normal people can be heroes too.
Why then only 3.5 stars then? (By the way that is still between ok and good according to my self created scale, so still very much worth reading.) Well there was a change in the narrative about 80% of the way in.
Let me explain, In a series of books you can get two types:
1. Episodic. Same characters but different story every book.. Think SherlocK Holmes.
2. Serial. Same characters but with one long story throughout the books. Think Game of Thrones.
This novel was strictly episodic up until it wasn't (to semi quote the author.) I had totally bought into the format only to be switched at the last minute. While both types are similar they are slightly different. It would have been akin to watching my beloved Scarlets play a game of rugby union only for them to start playing rugby league in the last 10mins. It threw me bit. Either style would have been fine on their own. So I think it cost the book half a star form me.
Despite this quirk, which is probably a me thing anyway, I still found this book to be an interesting new avenue of crime/thriller for me. I would gladly read a Jake Needham novel again. It just made me wish that I had started at book number 1
A suntan in Western countries might be a symbol of wealth and leisure, but it was the opposite in Asia. The only Asians with suntans were those forced to do manual labor outside to earn their living. Pure white, untanned skin meant wealth and leisure, and most Asian women went to considerable lengths to make sure theirs looked that way.
All I’ve been told is that the countries that had people killed or wounded in the attack are clamoring for an arrest, and the Thai police are completely overwhelmed.” Tay nodded. That made sense. In his experience, the Thai police would be completely overwhelmed by too many people parking illegally.
Americans don’t understand how much they’re resented by nearly everyone. They seem convinced that everyone else wants to be them. Almost no one wants to be them. Everyone just wants to have the stuff they have.”
That was the way things worked in Washington. Somebody has to take the fall for screw-ups, and when it was you or the president, it was you.
- If You Liked This, Then You May Like...
The Teenage Textbook by Adrian Tan
The Singapore Sling Quartet by Oon AhPhing
The Inspector Chen Series by Qui Xiaolong
JAKE NEEDHAM received the Barry Award at Bouchercon 2024, the world's largest convention of mystery readers, for BEST PAPERBACK MYSTERY OF 2024. He is a three-time Barry Award nominee, as well as a nominee for the International Thriller Writers' award for BEST PAPERBACK THRILLER OF THE YEAR. Needham is an American screen and television writer who has lived in Thailand for over thirty years. He started writing crime novels when he realized he really didn't like movies and television all that much. Since then, he has published fifteen popular mysteries and thrillers in two different series — The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels, and the Jack Shepherd Novels — as well as the international bestseller, THE BIG MANGO.
