Mr. Wong is a feng shui consultant in Hong Kong who occasionally uses his skills for more than just interior decoration. In this particular book, he finds himself looking into multiple odd cases, including an apparent kidnapping, a ghost at a dentist's office, and a young lady who various psychic readings indicate that she will soon die.

The publisher's description makes it sound like that last case is Wong's primary focus throughout the book, but it actually takes quite a while before he becomes directly involved (unless I zoned out and missed something, which is honestly possible). One of the biggest issues I had with this book was the way it meandered, despite several supposedly time-sensitive issues.

Wong was "assisted" by his utterly useless office administrator, Winnie Lim, and his young intern, Joyce McQuinnie. A few pages after I wondered why Wong put up with Winnie, the author provided an answer (she'd made herself indispensable with an office filing system only she understood), but after her third or fourth refusal to answer the office phone, I decided replacing Winnie would probably be worth reorganizing all the files.

Joyce was better, once the author allowed readers to learn more about her from her own POV rather than Wong's very "Westernized young people are incomprehensible" POV. She was adrift and didn't really feel like she belonged anywhere. Although her father supported her financially (which she later realized was a good deal better than nothing), he was otherwise pretty absent from her life. Wong inadvertently gave Joyce an emotional boost when he gave her his kidnapping case (mostly because he didn't think it was a real kidnapping and he just wanted it out of his hair) since she knew several of the people involved. I could see Wong and Joyce's relationship being a big part of this series' draw later on - their difficulty communicating with each other was occasionally amusing and could be even more appealing if it was combined with Wong purposely becoming a supportive figure in Joyce's life.

For the most part, the mysteries didn't really interest me, even as the connections between some of them were revealed. I did, however, enjoy the way Wong's feng shui knowledge was worked into things (although I don't know enough about feng shui to know if it was accurate) - he tended to pay close attention to architectural plans and other information that might indicate the location of water pipes and other features important to his work. Some of those parts were so practical that it was somewhat of a shock how badly Wong reacted to the Sydney Opera House and its supposedly terrible feng shui later on in the book. (And now I have questions, because some googling indicates that feng shui principles inspired the building's architecture, but the things I've seen mentioned only slightly overlap with what Vittachi brings up in this book.)

I don't see myself going out of my way to read more of this series, but if I happen to come across another one of its books, I might try it just to see if Wong and Joyce learn to mesh better.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

A marvelous mix of Asian themes and detective fiction, with a marvelous overlay of droll humour. When you hire the Feng Shui detective he will solve the crime and reorganise your house. For a fee of course. ( )

A most enjoyable collection of amusing, entertaining and intruiging little mysteries. The culture clash aspect is well-exploited, although I found teenage assistant Joyce a little messy as a character -- I was sure she was from the US at the start due to the variety of English she spoke but it was later revealed she is English. Her voice just missed the mark of ringing true to me. That is a very small nitpick, however, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend these short stories as a pleasing, well-written, light-hearted diversion. ( )

Based in Singapore, with a cast of interesting characters from different cultures – Chinese, Malaysian, British, and Australian - the humour is delightful in this novel. Much of the humour comes from language and different interpretations of cultures and words. (It is very similar to the communication between IT developers that happen every day, as the IT world becomes more and more international.) The mysteries being solved – yes, more than one - are also well thought-out and plotted. A delightful novel. ( )

This book has also been issued as: The Feng Shui Detective goes South". This particular edition is a novel; there is also a book of short stories by the same name. I suspect that the short story collection was also issued as The Feng Shui Detective's Casebook, but I couldn't verify that.

Nury Vittachi is one of my favorite writers, and this book, set in cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic Singapore is hysterically funny. A routine feng shui evaluation of a house launches C. F. Wong into an investigation of a series of possibly related crimes, including attempted murder. Trailing along is his intern, Australian teenager Joyce McQuinnie, reluctantly accepted as a favor to a friend. Wong is baffled by Joyce's lifestyle and slang ridden English; they none-the-less join forces and learn to respect one another. Even Wong's employee-from-hell Winnie Lim can't stop them.

Wong is also attempting to compile a book of Chinese wisdom; fragments of it make an interesting and sometimes humorous counterpoint to the story. ( )