THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE (An Inspector Samuel Tay Novel) [Kindle Edition]

Jake Needham (Author)

Book Description

"Jake Needham is Michael Connelly with steamed rice." -- The Bangkok Post

The first body is in Singapore, on a bed in an empty suite in the Marriott Hotel. The second in Bangkok, in a seedy apartment close to the American embassy. Both women. Both Americans. Both beaten viciously and shot in the head. Both stripped naked and lewdly displayed.

The FBI says it's terrorism, but the whispers on the street are that a serial killer is stalking American women across Asia.

Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID is something of a reluctant policeman. He's a little overweight, a little lonely, a little cranky, and he smokes way too much. Thinking back, he can't even remember why he became a police detective in the first place. He talks about quitting all the time, but he hasn't. Because the thing is, he's very, very good at what he does.

When bodies of American women start turning up, Singapore CID calls in Inspector Tay. It's a high profile case, and he's the best they have.

Then why is it, Tay soon begins to wonder, that nobody seems to want him to find the women's killer? Not the FBI, not the American ambassador, not even his bosses at CID.

When international politics takes over a murder case, the truth is the next victim.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE is another terrific book from a terrific writer. In the genre of crime fiction set in Asia, Jake Needham is in a class of his own." --The Bangkok Post

"Jake Needham has a knack for bringing intricate plots to life. His stories blur the line between fact and fiction and have a ripped from the headlines feel." --CNNgo

  
"Jake Needham is Asia's most stylish and atmospheric writer of crime fiction." -- The Singapore Straits Times

 

About the Author

JAKE NEEDHAM is an American screen and television writer who began writing legal and spy thrillers when he realized he didn't really like movies and television very much.

Mr. Needham has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand for nearly twenty-five years. He is a lawyer by education and has held a number of significant positions in both the public and private sectors where he took part in a lengthy list of international operations he has absolutely no intention of telling you anything about. He, his wife, and their two sons now divide their time between homes in Bangkok and New York.

You can learn more about Jake Needham at his official website: JakeNeedham.com.

Product Details

• File Size: 781 KB
• Print Length: 361 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 9749375084
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Half Penny Ltd (Hong Kong) (November 24, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006E8ZYPI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,618 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Comparative Study March 26, 2012

By Mike Bell

Format:Paperback

'I got a degree in English Literature. I taught the subject for thirty-eight years so I know a thing or two about it. I've just finished a comparative study of writers based in Thailand or who draw their inspiration here. I read, Dean Barrett's 'Skytrain to Murder; Chris Moore's '9 Gold Bullets'; & Jake Needham's 'The Ambassador's Wife. On the strength of this experience I have just bought 'Laundry Man' also by Jake Needham.

His tale is crisply told and his sense of characterisation uncannily real; I loved his Inspector Tay as he wrestled to give up smoking then gave in gracefully. There is detailed insider knowledge of Singapore and Bangkok which create an excellent backdrop to horrific murders that Tay is reluctantly required to solve or pass them on to other agencies. His dogged refusal and his tangles with his boss make for fascinating reading.

Mike Bell

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More Tay please! June 8, 2012

By sturgess66

Format:Paperback

It looks like I have found another author to add to my "favorites" list. "The Ambassador's Wife" is the first Jake Needham book that I have read - and - that I could hardly wait to get back to to reading my novel - says it all, I think. Inspector Samuel Tay is a simple man, a bit shy, and with a knack for looking at things in a simple way. He is also a thinking man - sometimes thoughts about life in general or life in the city, smog and sunsets, dry cleaning and packing, and his cigarette habit. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes self-deprecating - all the while following his own pathways and intuitions towards solving some rather serious crimes in high places. I grew very fond of Tay as the book progressed - and I suspect that this author must like him too. So - more Tay please! I also enjoyed very much Jake Needham's descriptions of life in Singapore, and then Bangkok and Pattaya. It is obvious that he knows well how things go 'round in these places. All this is a fast-paced and very well written crime fiction novel that is quite believable! I'm looking forward to reading more of Jake Needham's novels. I don't have a kindle and like reading paperbacks. It takes a bit of effort to track down Needham's books in paperback since they do not seem to be available in bookstores in the USA. I hope we will be able to find them in bookstores here soon!

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Majulah Singapura" - "Onward" - Sam Tay and Jake Needham!!! May 4, 2012

By miki 101 . Michaela

Format:Paperback

Those who have the fortune to move around in Asia, especially in South-East-Asia, will often hear the not very nice surname "Singa-Bore" given to this in reality very exciting city that is our beloved Singapore.
Not for nothing the name means "City of the Lion"!
And that descrives it 100%ly - raving, full of pulsations and entertainments that maybe only a special kind of people is able to grasp...
And now here is a writer who has captured all the Best of this enormous, full-of-life, melting wok city that is Singapore!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to present to You: Jake Needham!

He is the "Father" of his Singaporean hero Samuel Tay, a man I really would like to encounter in my real live!
He is a gentleman of the old school, a detective who honours his badge, respected by everyone - the Chief of Police, his sub-ordinates, and even by his ex-Lover (a fact, that is very, but very very important for the reputation of a man!!)

So, our hero Sam Tay finds himself in the Marriot Hotel in a room with a woman bestially beaten to death and "presented" in a more than obscene pose that I would never b able to descrive...
Buy the book, if You want to know more...

More, yes - more... Because the same thing happens to a woman in Pattaya, a very notourious locality near Bangkok.
Same cause of death, but much more important to the Americans, who yet wanted to cover up the Singapore killing as a Terroristic act.
The Pattaya woman was politically obviously much more important than the first, murdered in Singapore. So the CIA, FBI and what other abbreviations You want, are all sniffing around....
A culprit - a Thai-muslim terrorist, fitting the profile perfectly, is soon found and - justifiably "stopped" when he wants to get away. But there is a very sad "collateral victim", too.

But Sam Tay has yet made the acquaintance of one John August.
And he will see, that sometimes the law protects the real culprit.
And sometimes there is the need of someone who is very, but very very good in bending the law to make justice.

This is the first book Jake Needham has written about Sam Tay.
Please, write an other, Jake!!

In the meantime - for the lovers of Oriental Crime:
These are the other books Jake has written about his other, Bangkok based ex-pat
hero Jack Shepherd:
The Big Mango
Laundry Man (Attention! Came once out as Tea Money, too!!)
Killing Plato. Jake Needham

and the new one, for now only in e-book A WORLD OF TROUBLE (A Jack Shepherd crime thriller)
But there is a printed version too coming out in about 2 months.
I - for what it may count - like the way Jake writes.
I suppose that buying all his books and continue reading them, says enough...:))

And maybe my 5 Star Rating, too... Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Dynamite Mystery Introducing Inspector Sam Tray in Singapore June 8, 2012

By Steele Curry

Format:Paperback

The Ambassador's Wife is a superb mystery written by a master storyteller. Inspector Sam Tray confronts a cast of nefarious characters based in the American Embassy in Singapore who think they can get away with multiple murders but underestimate Tray's ability to investigate their crimes. Tray attracts some strong allies as he attempts to unravel what happened to two high-profile victims. Jake Needham's style of writing reminds me a great deal of Ross Thomas, another favorite author of mine. Let's hope we get to read another tale about Inspector Tray in the near future.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More, please!! May 28, 2012

By Cheapskate

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm smitten with Inspector Tay and I hope there are more books about him in the works. The main setting is exotic Singapore, but the story and the characters would be at home anywhere. Tay is a charming, intelligent, humorous man with his share of self-doubt, but he's steadfast in his pursuit of the killer. This book is a great ride, and I'll be buying more from the author. My only criticism: Tay smokes waaaaaaaay too much!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ambassador's Wife - Jake Needham dissects Singapore July 16, 2012

By far side travel

Format:Kindle Edition

The Ambassador's Wife , a Jake Needham novel set in Singapore, and partly in Thailand - to appease his fans of his novels set in that country like The Big Mango, The Laundry Man, Killing Plato and A World of Trouble - is setting new bench marks in the crime genre set in Asia.
As Jake explains, in his Letters From Asia, of the main character, Inspector Samual Tay, and it's locations:

"I honestly had no idea how my readers would react to a book about a Singaporean policeman that was, of course, set largely in Singapore. Just to hedge my bets a little, I let Inspector Tay pursue his investigation to Pattaya and Bangkok in one section of the book. I didn't want my readers to be completely lost. And I wasn't sure that many of them really gave much of a damn about Singapore."

The novel takes a while to speed up. But when Jake decides to put the book in turbo mode, after meticulously setting up the scene, there are kangaroos and deers stunned by the bright head lights as Jake drives his book into dark territory of spooks and invisible hands. And Inspector Tay, who can hold his own against the CIA, the Ambassador, and other forces tugging him into the abyss, can hold his own.

We are rooting for Inspector Samuel Tay, a Singaporean with an American bent. He hates Americans, and to be fair, he doesn't think much of Australians either, with their 'creased t-shirts". That's Tay. He's happy in book shops, and taking guilty drags of his Marlboro Reds.
In the book, Jake paints a quaint picture of Tay:

"Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID has always been something of a reluctant policeman. He is a little overweight, a little cranky, a little lonely, and he smokes way too much.... Thinking back, he can't even remember why he became a police detective in the first place. All he really knows is that he is very, very good at it."

Tay is set up as the underdog. But Jake has made sure that we love this eccentric, who seems to attract hot career women, including the lady who does the autopsy on the Ambassador's wife, and a very rich and beautiful socialite who Tay will use to get the local gossip on the victim.
If it's sight seeing you want, Jake gives us great travel writing embedded in the novel:

Asia Light, some people called it. It always made him think of a gigantic movie set someone had built to represent a generic city. He had heard a lot of American television shows were actually filmed in Toronto because Toronto looked like everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Singapore was exactly like that. Everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Even Paul Theroux and Pico Iyer could take a leaf out of Jake's penetrating observation and great travel writing. But weaved into this are plots and subplots is a case unfolding of the murder of an Ambassador's wife. Who said you couldn't incorporate travel and crime together? Jake certainly didn't!

Tay calls up an old flame, and socialite to find out any back ground information on her. The Ambassador's wife is portrayed as a bubbly dumb blonde, who is also into women. But that is only a lead. The real motive for her death is soon revealed.

Found in the Marriott hotel, with a flash light up her reproducing parts, with a mauled face, a CIA agent who visits Tay suspects it's terrorism, and deters the Inspector from following it up. This is where the tension starts to build.

The Ambassador is an aspiring career man, whose estranged but now dead wife isn't' what she appears to be. There's no grief on his part. He is on a war path. If Inspector Tay thinks he wants to take over the case, then he's in for a hell of surprise.

Will Inspector Tay, the introspective, book reading, and aspiring cyclist - yes he bought a bike, on a recommendation of a girlfriend, but the time he decides to get some exercise one Sunday morning, he's visited by a CIA agent - solve the case? Will he rise against the behemoth of the CIA and other terrorist elements from Southern Thailand, to solve this case? And just who is the Ambassador's wife?

It's sequel, The Umbrella Man, is due out in November. Singapore is scorched with a string of bombings. The sequel, explains Jakes, is a request from readers who have demanded him to write the follow up. Singapore may just be the right environment for great detective novels. But I'd personally love to see one set in Indonesia, where I think Needham would rise to the challenge with local color, humor, and intrigue - his key signature. Read more ›

More About the Author

JAKE NEEDHAM is an American screen and television writer who began writing crime novels and legal thrillers when he realized he really didn't like movies and television very much.

He is a lawyer by education and held a number of significant positions in both the public and private sectors where he took part in a lengthy list of international operations he has absolutely no intention of telling you about. Then, somehow, he became a screenwriter following a series of accidents and coincidences too ridiculous to be believed.

Mr. Needham has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand for over twenty-five years. He, his wife, and their two sons now divide their time between homes in Thailand and the United States.

You can read excerpts from all Jake Needham's books as well as his occasional 'Letters from Asia' at his web site: www.JakeNeedham.com.