Rosie “Aunty” Lee, the feisty widow, amateur sleuth, and proprietor of Singapore’s best-loved home cooking restaurant, is back in another delectable, witty mystery involving scandal and murder among the city’s elite.
Few know more about what goes on in Singapore than Aunty Lee. When a scandal over illegal organ donation involving prominent citizens makes news, she already has a list of suspects. There’s no time to snoop, though—Aunty Lee’s Delights is catering a brunch for local socialites Henry and Mabel Sung at their opulent house.
Rumor has it that the Sung’s fortune is in trouble, and Aunty Lee wonders if the gossip is true. But soon after arriving at the Sung’s house, her curiosity turns to suspicion. Why is a storage house she discovers locked? What is the couple arguing about behind closed doors? Where is the guest of honor who never showed up?
Then, Mabel Sung and her son Leonard are found dead. The authorities blame it on Aunty Lee’s special stewed chicken with buah keluak, a local black nut that can be poisonous if cooked improperly. Aunty Lee has never carelessly prepared a dish. She’s certain the deaths are murder—and that they’re somehow linked to the organ donor scandal.
To save her business and her reputation, she’s got to prove it—and unmask a dangerous killer whose next victim may just be Aunty Lee.

My Review:

For a book that uncovers a very serious topic, Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials still retains its feel as a cozy mystery. While so much of the trouble revolves around Aunty Lee’s catering business, the case she finds herself in the middle of deals with the very dark side of compensated organ donations and medical tourism.

A lot of the people involved in this case turn out to be really sick, and they didn’t get that way from eating Aunty Lee’s cooking – not that they don’t try to blame the whole thing on her and her catering. Aunty Lee would probably have involved herself anyway – she does that for fun – but attacking her catering business closes out her one method of dealing with loneliness and widowhood – by fixing other people food and fixing other people’s problems.

(Word to the wise – just as in the first book in the series, Aunty Lee’s Delights, Aunty Lee cooks a lot, and it all sounds exotic and positively yummy. Even the things that may seem very strange to us, like fried anchovies. Do not read this book when you are hungry – you will find yourself spontaneously raiding your own kitchen, and possibly kitchens for several houses around!)

The story begins with Aunty Lee scouring the newspaper, and having her friend and companion Nina scouring the internet, for news of a suicide victim. A young woman came to Singapore to find her missing fiance, and commits suicide when neither he nor his body can be found. Her young man disappeared after agreeing to come to Singapore to donate a kidney. This type of organ donation for cash is strictly illegal in Singapore, but the young couple needed the money to get married. When he disappears, she is left bereft and pregnant.

While at the beginning Aunty Lee’s nose for trouble seems to be leading her to something unrelated to her own life, as usually happens the case quickly draws closer to home, even though the police and everyone else urge her to drop it – sometimes with threats.

Things start out simple. Aunty Lee caters a party for a family that seem to be movers and shakers in the Singapore upper crust. One of the fun things about Aunty Lee is that while she acts as if she is just a caterer and restaurant owner, she herself is actually a member of that upper crust. And as is often the case, the people who are looking down on her for working are really people that she could buy and sell several times over.

The house party falls apart fairly spectacularly. First a young man gatecrashes the party looking for his missing friend. Then two members of the family are found dead after eating one of Aunty Lee’s more famous dishes, a delight that is notorious for poisoning diners if the dish is not prepared properly. Of course, Aunty Lee always prepares everything properly.

But even as she is cleared of any possible involvement in what now looks like a murder-suicide, the family is still determined to drive her out of business so that she publicly takes the blame for the mess. It seems to Aunty Lee that the family is moving heaven, earth and their powerful social network, in order to suppress any attempt to search for the real killer.

And that’s where Aunty Lee steps in, up to her neck. Her honor is under threat. And she is all too aware that she will be prey to loneliness and depression without her business (and her need to look into everyone else’s business) to keep her occupied.

As they say, curiosity killed the cat. And if Aunty Lee isn’t careful, she might find herself in the same pickle.

Escape Rating B: At the beginning the case, or Aunty Lee’s involvement in it, seems more than a bit shambolic. There are too many suspects, many too many motives, and no clear path to zeroing in on a single one of either. Even Aunty Lee comments to herself, or to the portrait of her late husband that she regularly talks to, that she has all the elements of a case but they aren’t fitting together quite right. This recipe is missing a key ingredient.

Which she doesn’t find for about the first third of the story. At that point, things start making more sense and the pace picks up considerably. We’re still not there yet, but you can feel Aunty Lee closing in on a solution.

Aunty Lee sometimes plays herself for comic relief, pretending to be a confused little old lady when in fact she’s sharp as a tack and surprisingly spry for her age. As well as quite well off. And the police commissioner is an old and dear friend, which always helps when you insert yourself into murder investigations on a regular basis.

But the underlying story in Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials is not funny at all. The world of compensated organ donation is ugly and brutal. While the results in this particular case are ultimately tragic, as well as deadly for too many people who didn’t even know they were on the fringe of this dirty business, the problems that are exposed are dire and have no good solutions. The needs of people who will do almost anything in hopes of a better life are easily exploited by those who have enough money to circumvent the rules. And because it all operates under the table, it becomes a criminal enterprise where even the innocent are at risk.

That part of the case leaves the reader, and Aunty Lee, with no good answers. Only hard questions.

This delectable and witty mystery introduces Rosie "Aunty" Lee, feisty widow, amateur sleuth and proprietor of Singapore's best-loved home cooking restaurant
After losing her husband, Rosie Lee could easily have become one of Singapore's "tai tai," an idle rich lady devoted to mah-jongg and luxury shopping. Instead she threw herself into building a culinary empire from her restaurant, Aunty Lee's Delights, where spicy Singaporean home cooking is graciously served to locals and tourists alike. But when a body is found in one of Singapore's beautiful tourist havens, and when one of her wealthy guests fails to show at a dinner party, Aunty Lee knows that the two are likely connected.
The murder and disappearance throws together Aunty Lee's henpecked stepson Mark, his social-climbing wife Selina, a gay couple whose love is still illegal in Singapore, and an elderly Australian tourist couple whose visit-billed at first as a pleasure cruise-may mask a deeper purpose. Investigating the murder is rookie Police Commissioner Raja, who quickly discovers that the savvy and well-connected Aunty Lee can track down clues even better than local law enforcement.
Wise, witty and unusually charming, Aunty Lee's Delights is a spicy mystery about love, friendship and home cooking in Singapore, where money flows freely and people of many religions and ethnicities co-exist peacefully, but where tensions lurk just below the surface, sometimes with deadly results.

My Review:

Following in the footsteps of Jane Marple, Mrs. Pollifax and Precious Ramotswe, Rosie Lee is a woman of a certain age who is constitutionally incapable of keeping her nose out of other people’s business – especially when that business is murder.

Everyone calls her Aunty Lee, and Aunty Lee’s Delights is the name of her restaurant and catering business. It seems to also be Aunty Lee’s delight to solve murders and fix people’s lives – to the point where she gets bored when running the restaurant is the only thing on her plate.

So it’s a real, if slightly perverse, treat when the body of a young woman washes up on the nearby shore. Aunty Lee can’t resist bringing up the mystery to everyone in her circle of family, friends and acquaintances, in the hope that someone knows more than the papers are telling about the late “Jane Doe”.

We also meet the cast of characters who both surround Aunty Lee and who are possible suspects in the case. Because it turns out that Aunty Lee, and everyone else involved in her stepson’s “wine and dine” business, knew the victim. The question hinges on which of them the late Laura Kwee knew much too much about.

And when another young woman’s body washes up on the shore, it’s up to Aunty Lee to expose the killer before he kills again – and before the police arrest one of their many possible suspects for a crime that they did not commit.

But in this case of secrets and lies, no one involved is quite who or what they claim to be, including the killer.

Escape Rating B: Aunty Lee’s Delights is the first book in the series by author Ovidia Yu. As a first book, it carries the weight of introducing all the continuing characters, as well as making Singapore come alive for readers who are not familiar with the city-state.

Her main character, Aunty Lee, is surrounded by family, friends and lifelong connections, some of whom are much more likeable than others. Rosie Lee is a bit of a different heroine – on the one hand, she is an elderly detective. On the other, she only acts old when it suits her purpose. At the same time, her lifelong membership in the upper class of Singapore gives her access to a wealth of social power and connections to people in high places.

Her own inner circle is close. Her companion and caregiver, Nina, helps her in the restaurant and with all her “cases”, sometimes whether Nina really wants to or not. Her stepson Mark is kind of sweet but completely ineffectual – he starts multiple businesses that never succeed, and Aunty Lee bails him out over and over. His wife Selina (Aunty Lee calls her Silly-Nah) seems to be a heartless bitch. I’ll confess to hoping that marriage doesn’t last.

The mystery is fairly cozy. Aunty Lee knows all the possible suspects, both of the victims and the police commissioner. Having friends in both high and low places is always helpful. All of the possible suspects have secrets, and Aunty Lee is an expert at ferreting out people’s secrets, whether or not they lead to murder.

This turned out to be a fun and interesting story. I enjoyed the Singapore setting, it is new to me but the author brought it to life in a way that draws the unfamiliar reader into Aunty Lee’s world. It was also a refreshing change to read a mystery where the case is resolved with brain instead of brawn – or firearms. If you are looking for a different kind of mystery in a fresh setting, Aunty Lee’s Delights is a treat. I’m looking forward to diving in to the next book in the series, Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials.

Warning to readers – do not read this book while hungry! The descriptions of the traditional Singaporean dishes that Aunty Lee cooks throughout the story all sound absolutely scrumptious, whether familiar or not. You’ll want to try everything!