Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID is a little cranky, a little lonely, a little overweight, and he smokes way too much, but when the corpses of prominent American women start turning up around Asia, he’s the guy who gets the call.
The first body is there in Singapore, on a bed in an empty suite at the Marriott Hotel. The second is in Bangkok, at a seedy apartment near the American embassy. Both American women, both viciously beaten and grotesquely displayed. The FBI says it’s terrorism, but the whispers on the street tell a different story. The whispers say a serial killer is stalking American women across Asia.
Tay’s bosses at Singapore CID are nervous as hell about leaving this in his hands. They don’t like Tay and he doesn’t like them, but he’s still the best detective the Singapore cops have ever had. That’s why he’s got the case. Too many dead foreigners and people start to talk.
Before Tay can even get the investigation started, he’s confronted by a serious complication. Everybody wants to take it away from him. The FBI insists on control over the case, the American Diplomatic Security Service says it’s in charge, Singapore’s Internal Security Department announces the case belongs to them, and Bangkok’s Special Branch wants a piece of it, too. Even the American Ambassador sticks his considerable nose right into the middle of everything.
That’s a lot of people walking all over Tay’s murder case. Particularly when he realizes that none of them, not a single one, seems at all interested in seeing him solve it.
Why doesn’t anyone want him to find the killer? Tay has to ask himself. Could he be the only one who doesn’t already know who it is?