Serving in the twilight of a successful, but underappreciated, career in the Singapore police force, Inspector Singh has problems with authority. But when the force needs to send an officer overseas to break a case, it is the overweight, chain-smoking crime solver they rely on. While he is capable and dedicated, he also provides them with an easy scapegoat if things go badly.
The hero of Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh Investigates murder-mystery series finds himself in Bali in the wake of the 2002 bombings to investigate the death of a man found in the wreckage but actually killed by a bullet.
'I wanted to set each case in a different country because I'm trying to bring out, each time, something unique about the culture, but that also forms a motive for murder,' Flint says. 'In the case of Bali, there is a very complex hierarchical society ... and there [is] also a lot of social dysfunction within Balinese society.
'There is this wonderful community of washed-up expats that live in Bali, drink together, run some small business with a Balinese girlfriend; it's the extreme of expat culture, of people thinking they've found paradise but are really living in self-denial,' she says.
Flint, 40, worked for 10 years as a corporate lawyer before self-publishing her first novel, Partners in Crime, in 2006, followed by Criminal Minds last year.
Little, Brown of Britain offered her a three-book deal that saw Criminal Minds re-published in April as Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder. The second, Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul, will be published this month, while Partners in Crime will be published as the third book in the series (retitled Inspector Singh Investigates: The Singapore School of Villainy) once she rewrites the book to give the inspector a heavier role.
'It was only after I completed the first book that I realised Inspector Singh was my most compelling character,' she says.