Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish by Stephen Leather (Epub)

Description

Inspector Zhang loves mysteries, but as a Detective Inspector with the Singapore Police Force he knows that mysteries are few and far between. There are relatively few crimes in the city state and those that are committed are usually solved quickly. But that all changes when Inspector Zhang is called to a top Singapore hotel where a guest has been found murdered in a locked room. The guest made a phone call to room service shortly before he was killed – but CCTV footage shows that nobody entered or left the room. So finally Inspector Zhang has his wish – a mystery to solve. But will it be too much for him?

This is a short story, just under 9000 words, equivalent to about 30 pages. A perfect read if you have an hour to kill.

It has received a four star review from Amazon Top 500 Reviewer Shaun Horrigan. He wrote – “Impeccably dressed and well spoken, Inspector Zhang is a Detective Inspector in the Singapore Police. He loves reading, especially traditional detective fiction, even going as far as teaching himself Japanese in order to read a series of books that were never published in English.

“For his entire career he has longed for a murder mystery to test his deductive powers, but murders hardly ever happen in Singapore. Summoned late one night to a five star hotel, it seems he has finally got his wish when the body of a wealthy American businessman is discovered in what seems to be a ‘locked room mystery’.

“I certainly haven’t read all of Stephen Leather’s works, but I have read a few, and those that I have read have a few things in common. They are all extremely well written in a very contemporary style and they have all been hard hitting and rather graphic. This little story is also well written, but it is the total opposite in terms of style. This story reads very much like an Agatha Christie “whodunnit”. It is very gentle in style, has no gore, is not in any way graphic in nature, and has no strong language at all. All in all it is a very easy going read. Personally I found this a refreshing change.

“Stephen Leather has very much taken the Kindle to heart and as I would expect the Kindle presentation is first class. I only picked up one minor typo in the entire story. This little story took me just over half an hour to read and is 465 locations on the Kindle/roughly 30 pages, about the perfect length for something to read between novels.

I have also included the first few chapters of another detective story set in Asia – Bangkok Bob and The Missing Mormon.

User’s Reviews

There is no Editorial Review for this book

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ Inspector Zhang Gets His WishStraight to the point!…. which is a murder mystery. That’s the way I like my murder mysteries! That is how this book is!This locked room mystery happens in a 5 star hotel in Singapore. Inspector Zhang is likable. He is practically shaking with excitement (and I’m shaking along with him) when he finds out that he is facing a real life locked room mystery. He has been waiting all his career life for this. But “….. In Singapore we are lucky if have one murder a year.”He is very keen on reading old fashion mysteries and very excited to have an opportunity to apply all his accumulated knowledge to this murder case.The whole book is a lot of fun and very funny. One of many funny things is when inspector Zhang is giving seven explanations that lead to a locked room murder. One of them is an ice made of ice.The manager explains how that can’t happen. The inspector sighed “Madam, I am not suggesting for one moment that Mr. Wilkinson was killed by a weapon made from ice.”The manager is quite upset about that. “Well you are the one who keeps mentioning it,” said the manager, flashing him a withering look.At this point I laugh out loud.The inspector keeps bringing up different scenarios how the murder can happen. He keeps quoting from the work of John Dickson Carr and keeps getting real life logical arguments from his sergeant and the manager and the hotel staff.His sergeant keeps telling him to call the station but he wants to use “ze little grey cells” to solve this locked room mystery himself without the help of scientific work.Everything in this short book is hilarious! I wish it was longer.At the end of this book, there is a teaser from another book: Bangkok Bob and the Missing Mormon by the same author. I like the whole 3 chapters and want to read the whole book.https://www.amazon.com/Bangkok-Missing-Mormon-Stephen-Leather-ebook/dp/B004AM5MV6/ref=sr_1_50?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1475772027&sr=1-50&keywords=stephen+leatherThe opening of this book is when Bangkok Bob is in a traffic jam because a hi-so (high society) woman stops her Mercedes to buy some mangoes. He owns an antique shop. A Mormon couple from the US are waiting for him with their problem. Their angelic virgin son is missing. They need Bob’s help.Leather knows a lot of Thai ways that I’m quite sure the writer must have very intimate experience with Thailand.It’s another good, well written book to read!

⭐ “Sergeant Lee was in her mid twenties, with her hair tied up in a bun that made her look older than her twenty-four years.” Repetitive on the age.I did enjoy the references to the various locked room mysteries.As far as this locked room mystery, Inspector Zhang is watching the CCTV footage and notes when the Manager, Ms. Berghuis, and her staff appear. Inspector Zhang solves the mystery, but because we, the reader, were not privy to the information he had, we were unable to participate in solving the mystery.

⭐ “Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish” is a highly unusual short story from a highly unlikely author. Stephen Leather is best known as a writer of hard nosed action thrillers, but he goes completely old school here… old school as in the classic mystery novels of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, what was intended as a tribute to these masters falls a bit short because he violates the fundamental rule of this style of mystery writing… he doesn’t play fair with the readers.The story is a classic locked room mystery. A guest in a luxury Singapore hotel is found murdered in his room. However, surveillance camera footage reveals that no one entered the room between the time he ordered room service until the waiter arrived with his meal minutes later and discovered the body. Police Investigator Zhang, who is called in to investigate, is a fan of the old mystery masters, especially John Dickson Carr, whose specialty was the locked room mystery. Naturally, Zhang is thrilled to have the chance to try to solve a mystery that Carr himself might have dreamed up.For the most part, the story is a good bit of fun. The characters are one dimensional stereotypes, but this story isn’t about the human element… it’s about solving a puzzle. And Zhang has a lot of fun explaining Carr’s theories about locked room mysteries at great length… discussing the various types of solutions Carr employed in his works and dismissing each one in turn until he finally explains just how the crime must have occurred. In addition to having fun with the genre, author Leather also derives a good but of humor from Zhang playing off the stiff, humorless hotel staff and his earnest assistant Sergeant Lee (when Zhang explains how he wishes he has a hat and a pipe like Sherlock Holmes, Lee cautions him that smoking isn’t permitted in a public building). Some readers may find this sort of light whimsy too trifling, but I’m a big fan of John Dickson Carr myself and I loved hearing Zhang explain Carr’s methodology.Unfortunately for me, there is one big difference between Leather and old masters like Carr. The old time writers believed in playing fair with the reader, with every bit of evidence needed to solve the mystery being present in the story. Leather cheats and cheats rather badly. Zhang solves the mystery by understanding the significance of one key piece of evidence, but the reader can’t do that because Leather’s description of that evidence fails to mention a crucial detail. Not only that, but earlier in the story, a character makes a statement about the crucial detail that is out-and-out wrong. but the reader has no way to deduce the statement is wrong. As a result, readers might well guess the culprit (this is a short story with a handful of characters), but it would be a mere guess.I still enjoyed the story, because of its playful manner and the way it pays tribute to a classic genre (although I feel many readers used to Leather’s meatier works will be disappointed). However, I deducted a full star from my review because Leather didn’t play fair with his readership. If you’re going to pay tribute to the masters of the genre, you should at least write a story of which they could be proud. John Dickson Carr would not have approved of this one.

⭐ ~It is an interesting way to present the classic “locked room murder”, with the references to other detectives by the investigating detective.~Inspector Zhang seemed to lead a pretty average life…all he wanted was one exciting case to solve.~Definitely a short story, not enough time for us to really get to know Zhang…however I don’t think this distracted from the story in this case. It was a quick tidy plot. A good story to read while the coffee is brewing.

⭐ Check the complete review at http://www.bubblews.com/news/9771917-inspector-zhang-gets-his-wish-inspector-zhang-by-stephen-leatherThis is a very interesting closed door murder mystery. The author gives due respect to Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot at various instances. Inspector Zhang lives in Singapore where murder is very rare. And he had spent his life waiting for that perfect locked room murder mystery to pop up. When such a mystery finally pops up, he refuses to use any scientific help to try and solve his much awaited mystery.

⭐ Leather manages to create a locked room mystery that is clever in its execution and is simultaneously an homage to the genre, especially in evoking the memory of John Dickson Carr, the locked room mystery’s greatest practitioner. Carr would not have been disappointed in this story; neither will you.

⭐ Just mildly amusing, with lots of data on what English mysteries are popular in Singapore, for those who are interested.

⭐ Nothing about this story felt real. We were supposed to believe that Zhang was some sort of master detective, but he spent most of his time talking about old detective stories, not even using the tools of his job. 90% of the story is him talking while everyone stands around. This had a strangely formal feel. This may have been what the author was going for, but it didn’t make for an enjoyable read. It was more like a game than a situation where someone had actually died and the setting (Singapore) was completely undeveloped.

⭐ The title “Inspector Zhang” caught my eye because of the word “Inspector.” I immediately thought of Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis that I have watched for years on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television. I was so sad when John Thaw passed away and Inspector Morse came to an end and was truly happy to see Endeavor, young Inspector Morse make an appearance on PBS here in the United States.Now here is Inspector Zhang, not on PBS, but in an e-book who is a combination of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and all the other sleuths over time. In a none other than a “locked room mystery.”Zhang and Lee, members of the Singapore Police Force, arrive at a five star hotel to investigate the death of Peter Wilkinson, an American who was in route to his plastic factories in China. Observation of Wilkinson show one wound under the chin that probably ruptured a vein and Wilkinson bled to death in a minute or two. It was obvious theft was not the motive as Wilkinson’s wallet had “a thick wad of notes and half a dozen credit cards, all gold or platinum.”After an initial interview with the staff on duty, Zhang deducts that there was a very narrow window of time where Wilkinson could have been killed.Inspector Zhang becomes excited because this is his first “locked room mystery.” A mystery he tells Lee he has waited for “My whole life.”After wishing for a deerstalker hat and a pipe (trademarks of Sherlock Holmes) and stating the mystery would not be solved by science but instead by using “ze little grey cells” (a saying of Hercule Poirot), Zhang explains John Dickson Carr’s seven explanations that lead to a locked room murder.I am not going to go into detail of the seven explanations, instead I will say that even after I read the explanations, I did not figure out the identity of the murderer – this is unusual for me as I usually figure out “who did it” about three-fourths of the way through the book or story.Stephen Leather’s Inspector Zhang stumped me. The only other “who done it” that boggled my mind was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Speckled Band. If I get bamboozled then I find the work an extraordinary story.Leather’s description of Inspector Zhang and Detective Sergeant Lee is very vivid. While reading the story I could not help but picture Jackie Chan as Inspector Zhang and Lucy Liu as Detective Sergeant Lee.Leather’s has written several other Inspector Zhang locked room mysteries:Inspector Zhang and the Falling WomanInspector Zhang and the Dead Thai GangsterInspector Zhang and the Disappearing DrugsWho knows, once Lucy Liu gets tired of playing the part as Joan Watson in Elementary, she might become convinced in playing the part, Detective Sergeant Lee in the Inspector Zhang series. That is, of course, if Inspector Zhang would become a television series.Read more about Stephen Leather here.**Note – I received no payment for this book review.**

⭐ It was written and formatted well. I love his book cover, but the story was a little dry, and Zhang tries too hard to appear smart. It’s like the author needs to reinforce to the reader that this Inspector is clever, and it actually makes the Inspector seem overly silly. It seemed cliche and the Seargent was pretty flat – she appeared to be a sounding board to illustrate the Inspector’s thoughts, but nothing else. All-in-all it wasn’t terrible and it held my attention.

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