The Night Tiger

Malaya, 1931. Ji Lin is working secretly as a dance hall girl trying to make money to help pay off her mother's debts. Ren is a houseboy working for a doctor who descends into apparent madness before his death, demanding that Ren find his finger and bury it with him so he can rest in peace. Meanwhile, Ji gets the finger and while she and Ren both race against time to figure out the mystery of the finger, several mysterious deaths occur, possibly caused by a vengeful tiger.

Beautifully blending historical fiction, mystery, and Asian folk tale, this compelling story completely hooked me as it became more and more complicated, more and more intense. I had to stop reading right before bed because the hairs on the back of my neck would stick show more up while I read and I'd be too wired to rest. Superb storytelling, and I can't wait to see what Yangsze Choo does next. show less

This has been sitting in my TBR pile for over a year. It's historical fiction set in 1930s Malaysia with supernatural overtones. An old expat doctor dies and charges his young houseboy Ren to retrieve his amputated finger so it can be buried in his grave so he doesn't become a hungry ghost. Jin, a young girl working as a 'dance instructor' finds a preserved finger in a bottle while dancing with a man; he later dies. Her step twin brother Shin works at the hospital where the houseboy's new employer William is employed. The houseboy, the young girl, her step twin and the doctor are linked: they all have as part of their name one of the 5 Confucian virtues. The fifth virtue is the houseboy's deceased twin brother Yi.

Woven around this is a show more man-eating tiger - who may be the old doctor in the process of transforming into a hungry ghost. Complicating matters is a member of the fishing fleet - Lydia, who has her sights set on William. She, like William, is identified as Li.

A very good supernatural mystery. I'm reminded of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries; traditional Chinese detective stories had strong supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic plot.

Recommended. show less

Adventure is a five-pack. There are five Chinese virtues. Five people named after those virtues. Five fingers. And (at least) five deaths. There are also mysterious were tigers, a black-market in charmed body-parts, and (at least) one extremely dangerous woman. You’d be right if you were thinking that the only thing missing is simmering sexual tension. But there it is, right around the corner. Between Ji Lin, her (unrelated) step-brother, Ren, Yi, and William (or Lydia), there is a remarkable web of coincidence, suspicious happenings, and mounds of eerie perceptions. It must be fate, because the adventure that ensues in 1930s colonial Malaysia is positively spooky.

Yangsze Choo does an admirable job tying together her plot and her five show more key figures. Told, alternately, from Ji Lin’s first-person perspective and a third-person viewpoint, primarily focused on Ren, the story leaps into high gear almost from the opening. Once Ji Lin accidentally acquires the amputated and preserved fifth finger of someone, she is on her way to discovering the connections between herself and each of the others. At once a stylish thriller and a murder mystery, Ji Lin’s story is every bit as exciting as one from her hero, Sherlock Holmes. It will keep you guessing.

Although Choo makes an effort to bring colonial Malaysia to life, I suspect that she is more interested in the intricacies of her plot. Which is perhaps a missed opportunity because I think the atmosphere and details of life there might have been equally compelling. However, if her goal was action and adventure, she at least accomplished that end. And maybe that should be enough.

Gently recommended. show less

Loved this one until the inevitable love interest kicked in and there were two crazies in the end instead of one. It was a bit far for even me to stretch my disbelief. And I really, really wanted Shin to be the evil one of the five because I'm tired of being unable to escape romance in books that are perfectly wonderful without them, I'm with Ji Lin's mom that loving your stepbrother is gross, and most of all because I got creepy vibes from him. I'm glad that that the story is open ended enough that I can imagine Ji Lin dumping him.

It's such a shame, because I loved this book so much, otherwise. The place descriptions made me want to go back to Singapore and Malaysia. The side characters were great--Choo has a way of telling us a show more little snippet that brings even revolving-door characters a bit of shine--and Ren and Ji Lin were both delightful. Ren is so sincere, and it's lovely to read a story that doesn't grind the child into a cynical pile of dust. It was also nice to see adults take genuine interest in his future, however unrealistic that may have been.

I loved Ji Lin's forthright personality, curiosity, and love for her mother. But I also liked the character of Dr. William Acton, who was a terrible bundle of flaws with some positive qualities that make you wonder if he'sredeemable. We don't get rock-solid answers from him by the end of the book, but after not one but two conveniently tied-up packages, I was very satisfied with a little bit of ambiguity.

I'm going for three stars but still putting this book on my "recommended" shelf. I don't know, if every single book with a woman main character has to have a romance, clearly it's just me who's so curmudgeonly about it and that's not going to detract from other people's enjoyment. Until almost 50 pages from the end, I was back in the lovely warm reading space that I haven't found since 2019, enjoying the experience of reading a book, meeting characters, and looking forward to reading instead of just plowing through even stories I enjoyed, like Gideon the Ninth, like chores instead of pleasure.

But man, this story was so wonderful just as it was. Ji Lin was wonderful just as she was. Why can't women characters ever just stand on their own?


Edit, 4/8/21: I recently reread my review of Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, and I think I had similar feelings about these two books. I was excited to read them and I loved about the first 2/3, but once the romance hit I was just so disappointed that it impacted my enjoyment of the rest of the book. Though in this case there was the added fact that the stupid love interest was emotionally abusive, so I couldn't just roll my eyes and get on with it. show less

I stayed up until 3am reading about severed fingers, weretigers, and forbidden romance.

📍 Malaysia 1930s

Yangsze Choo’s writing in The Night Tiger is LUSH. The cultural details are immersive. The murder mystery? I find it clever. And the social commentary…casual racism from British colonizers…hits hard.

📚 Read this if you …

• love atmospheric historical fiction.
• are into magical realism (where magic is ambiguous).
• enjoy murder mysteries that slowly unravel.
• are fascinated by Asian folklore and mythology.
• want romance that develops slooooowly.
• can handle morally grey characters.
• like strong female characters fighting patriarchy.

Is it perfect? No. I wasn’t a fan of the train station-dream thing. But I I show more enjoyed the book and think it’s gorgeous and atmospheric. show less

In May 1931, Ren, a young Malay orphan who keeps house for a doctor, receives a request that you know will haunt him and put him in harm’s way. With almost his last breath, the doctor, who’s missing a finger, orders Ren to find that digit and bury it in his grave. The command startles Ren, but not for the reasons you might think. Malay folklore holds that if a dead body isn’t buried whole, the soul will wander forever, so in that sense, the request is perfectly reasonable.

But Dr. MacFarland, as his name suggests, is Scots, and though the dying man has long studied local culture — unusually, for a European — Ren never expected such an assignment. It’s a heavy charge for a ten-year-old, even one who pretends to be thirteen, show more even though the doctor has shown him great kindness. And he’s got forty-nine days to complete his task, or the doctor’s soul will never rest.

Meanwhile, Ji Lin, a young Chinese woman, has taken a second job to support her mother’s gambling debts at mah-jongg. By regular trade, Ji Lin’s a seamstress’s apprentice, a profession she has little desire for, but the only career her punitive, autocratic stepfather will allow. On the sly, she works for a dance hall as an “instructor,” paid to accompany men who, of course, take whatever liberties they can.

If anyone finds out, she’ll be ostracized, not to mention the violent wrath she'll face at home. But just when she’s hoping to leave the dance hall forever, a greasy businessman she particularly dislikes gets too frisky. In the scuffle, her hand winds up in his pocket and pulls out a glass vial containing a human finger. Despite her instincts, she keeps it without telling him.

From this complex, dizzying, but deftly rendered setup ensues a mystery that’s dark, enthralling, and singular. You know that Ren and Ji Lin will meet sooner or later, but I advise you to make no other assumptions. Many suspicious deaths and strange occurrences happen within each character’s extended circle of acquaintances, though the two circles may or may not connect in expected ways.

The one thing you do find out, because The Night Tiger derives much of its considerable fascination from local culture, is that these two protagonists’ names belong to the Five Confucian Virtues, as do those of — you guessed it — three other characters. The most important of those is Yi, Ren’s twin, who died several years before, and of whom he has frequent, violent dreams. But Yi also provides Ren a sixth sense about how to pursue his quest for the doctor’s missing finger and of danger in general.

Further, though it’s not always clear how, some or all of the five have strayed from the virtues they represent, which causes further danger. Accordingly, the narrative becomes a moral tale as well as a mystery, so that uncovering the villains is only half the struggle, the rest having to do with good and evil.

Complicated as this is, I still wish that the author had held that moral theme more firmly to the end. But there’s plenty in this book, starting with the legends of the tiger, hence the title. Like many Malayans, Ren fears and admires that beast, often accused of nighttime rampages among human habitation. Even a tiger rug gives the boy pause.

There’s more yet. Aside from beliefs in weretigers (analogous to werewolves) and their alleged crimes, we have cultural obsession with lucky or unlucky omens, forbidden love, and feminism — Ji Lin has always wanted to enter medicine, but that’s reserved for Shin, her stepbrother (whose name reflects another of the Five Virtues).

The provincial landscape comes alive, but that’s not all, for you can practically taste the place. Throughout, the food the characters cook, serve, or consume will lose you your mind — rendang, sambal, noodle soups, desserts of coconut and tapioca. I’m looking through my recipe collection.

Normally, I shy away from supernatural influences in fiction, but the Night Tiger wins me over. Not only does the cultural background feel entirely lived-in and essential, the story never relies on the supernatural out of convenience, because little is convenient here. I like less how the mysteries resolve, which seems obvious and predictable, in part. That’s the only aspect that come up short and seems a bit contrived as well.

Overall, however, The Night Tiger is immensely satisfying. show less

Step into the world of Yangsze Choo's "The Night Tiger," where quick-witted Ji Lin trades her needle for a dance floor, hoping for adventure but getting more than she bargained for. Meanwhile, eleven-year-old Ren is on a mission to find a missing finger before his master's ghost becomes the eternal globe-trotter. Throw in unexplained deaths, shape-shifting whispers, and a touch of forbidden love, and you've got a novel that's more magical than a rabbit pulled from a moonlit hat.


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