8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Most Frustrating Book I've Ever Read, May 1, 2011
I was not sure what to make of the vastly opposing reviews here on amazon when I ordered this book. After reading it, I understand the negative ones and I have to wonder if those leaving 5 star reviews actually read the book.
The biggest mystery of all about this book is how on Earth it actually got published in this condition...
That said - I LIKED the book. Talk about conflicted feelings.
The good things about this book: a very interesting plot and characters that I really liked. Flint is obviously a brilliant and creative author. The story was intriguing [which was the ONLY thing that kept me reading].
The bad things about this book: This was the worst actual writing that I've ever seen in a published book. This book reads like a bad rough draft that nobody ever got around to proof reading or revising. The book is hard to follow - the author does things like change viewpoints mid paragraph and jump around amongst different characters in a way that feels positively frantic. Poor use of description and pronouns make much of the writing hard to even decipher. Poor grammar and extremely poor sentence structure plague the book throughout. Mammoth, meandering descriptions and modifiers go on and on and on in sentences that never end. Bad analogies and terrible cliches run rampant through the novel.
For example, read this sentence that I chose at random from a thousand other bad examples in this book: "A harassed woman, sauteing vegetables in a big pot of boiling water and then deftly flicking them onto a row of plates while another worker squirted soy sauce and a spoonful of fried garlic on each, said, 'She no speak Engris one!' "
So....you see the problem? [Aside from the fact that what she's describing is not sauteing vegetables but blanching them - sauteing involves the use of oil, but I digress..] What does this sentence even mean? Who spoke to us? The harassed woman at the beginning of the sentence or the other worker who squirts the soy sauce? The writing is just so horribly unclear and awkward like this throughout the book. It was painful to wade through.
The ambiguous use of pronouns really got to me - FREQUENTLY in a long, confusing passage describing a scene between two or more men or women, some important action would happen and the author would write "she [or he] did such and such" and I would seriously have no idea which of the two or three or more people involved did the action. Ahhhhhh!
Whoever was the editor of this book should seriously investigate another career in a very different field. I am completely mystified as to how this book ever made it into print in this condition - it is nuts.
That said, it was a heck of a plot and the characters were great. I think the author is interesting and talented - she just needed a lot more help from a good editor and some basic help on grammar and sentence structure.
I liked the storyline so much that I actually just bought the second in this series - and I can't beleive I've done it because I was pulling my hair in frustration during parts of trying to read this first one - but I'm hoping the writing improved. I think the author shows a lot of promise and with a good editor she could write some great fiction.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing Attempt at a Detective Novel, July 24, 2009
This review is from: Inspector Singh Investigates: a Most Peculiar Malaysian Murd (Inspector Singh Investigates 1) (Paperback)
Kudos to the author who was brave enough to expose ugly Malaysia, even its uglier inhabitants. Hold on to your seats whilst you are brought on a roller coaster ride of murder, bribery, adultery, police corruption (and idiocy amongst others), oppression of an indigenous tribe, the rape of the jungle of Borneo, the effects of religious diversity, all amidst the sweltering heat of the concrete jungle accompanied by flood, traffic jams and pollution. Quite a lot to swallow, eh?
Inspector Singh, an obviously bumbling (but not endearing the least bit) fool doesn't seem to do much investigating as the title suggests. He's constantly bothered by the heat ('tis a wonder why being Singaporean and all) and seems merely to act as a conduit for the author to thumb her nose to all things Malaysian. On the side, I would advise the author to have a little chat with a 'Chinese towkay' so that she'll avoid butchering the 'Chinese towkay' English as she did here.
All in all, I found it a very amateur attempt (by a Cambridge law grad) at a detective novel. I'll keep my cash rather than attempt her 2nd and 3rd Inspector Singh book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful & poorly written, July 18, 2011
This has to be by far one of the WORST books I have ever read. The mystery itself is weak, the characters are boring and one-dimensional. The story itself is long, drawn out and convoluted. My advice -- skip it for sure! Not worth the time.
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