Book review: 'Miss Moorthy Investigates'

Miss Moorthy Investigates
Ovidia Yu
Westland
207 pages
Rs195

Need a book to keep you company during your commute? Something fun, juicy and easy to read as your train or bus or taxi lurches its way past the morning traffic? Ovidia Yu’s Miss Moorthy Investigates is what the literary doctor ordered for you.

The setting is Singapore in the 1970s and there’s a serial killer, known as The Strangler, on the loose. For an orderly and well-regulated city like Singapore, the idea of a man who goes around butchering women and whose murderous signature is to chop off the victims’ hands is even more shocking than it would be for a place that is more familiar with crime. Miss Moorthy Investigates opens with the murder of Evelyn Ngui, a schoolteacher and a colleague of Savitri Moorthy. It seems The Strangler’s next target may be Miss Moorthy’s flatmate Connie, but before he can lift a finger, Connie and Miss Moorthy manage to take him down — Miss Moorthy belts out “Stop in the name of Love” and Connie thumps him with a brick. However, it seems The Strangler has a copycat and the copycat is the one who killed Evelyn. When Evelyn’s friend Jek is also killed — with a screwdriver to his chest — it’s more important than ever that Miss Moorthy do amateur detectives proud and solve her first case.

If you’re a fan of the whodunit genre, chances are you’ll figure out who killed Evelyn and Jek halfway into the book. However, whether or not you do, you will want to read Miss Moorthy Investigates till the end just because of how much fun Yu has packed into her storytelling. Yu’s Miss Moorthy is quite obviously inspired by Mma Precious Ramotswe of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, but she is no less charming because of this. Miss Moorthy treats the suspects of a murder case much like she treats her students, which makes Miss Moorthy Investigates particularly amusing, but because she’s perceptive, her adages turn out to be surprisingly apt.

Yu’s Singapore is a city in which eccentricity and adorable oddballs live in quiet harmony with the regimentation and clinical efficiency for which the city state is famous. Sprinkled throughout Miss Moorthy Investigates are delightful vignettes, like the story of the headmistress who berated Japanese soldiers for stepping on the school’s tapioca plants. Yu drops subtle but unmistakable hints at the oppressive nature of the Singaporean legal system in the 1970s — the state policy of taking punitive actions towards dyslexics and those in need of psychiatric help is fleetingly but pointedly mentioned. She also doesn’t shy of touching on the racist attitude towards Indians but doesn’t dwell on it. Miss Moorthy is too full of joie de vivre to let such narrow mindedness puncture her spirits.

While Miss Moorthy Investigates has little literary flair in its language and is largely emptied of complexity so far as the plot and characterisation are concerned, the novel is an undemanding and enjoyable read.