Singapore is exposed in all of its noir glory with scintillating stories from the very best of the city's authors. ― Singapore Noir  was nominated for a Popular Bookstore Reader’s Choice Award. “Singapore, with its great wealth and great poverty existing amid ethnic, linguistic, and cultural tensions, offers fertile ground for bleak fiction, as shown by the 14 tales in this solid Akashic noir anthology . . . Tan has assembled a strong lineup of Singapore natives and knowledgeable visitors for this volume exploring the dark side of a fascinating country.” ― Publishers Weekly “ Singapore Noir is the latest in Akashic’s long-running and globetrotting Noir series, giving plenty of new and unfamiliar voices a chance to shine.” ― San Francisco Book Review Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir . Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: Colin Goh, Simon Tay/Donald Tee Quee Ho, Philip Jeyaretnam, Colin Cheong, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Monica Bhide, S.J. Rozan, Lawrence Osborne, Suchen Christine Lim, Ovidia Yu, Damon Chua, Johann S. Lee, Dave Chua, and Nury Vittachi. From the introduction by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan: “Say Singapore to anyone and you’ll likely hear one of a few words: Caning. Fines. Chewing gum. "For much of the West, the narrative of Singapore―a modern Southeast Asian city-state perched on an island on the tip of the Malay Peninsula―has been marked largely by its government’s strict laws and unwavering enforcement of them . . . As much as I understand these outside viewpoints, I have always lamented that the quirky and dark complexities of my native country’s culture rarely seem to make it past its borders . . . "Beneath its sparkling veneer is a country teeming with shadows . . . And its stories remain. The rich stories that attracted literary lions W. Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling to hold court at the Raffles Hotel (where the Singapore Sling was created) are still sprinkled throughout its neighborhoods. And in the following pages, you’ll get the chance to discover some of them . . . "You’ll find stories from some of the best contemporary writers in Singapore―three of them winners of the Singapore Literature Prize, essentially the country’s Pulitzer: Simon Tay, writing as Donald Tee Quee Ho, tells the story of a hard-boiled detective who inadvertently wends his way into the underbelly of organized crime, Colin Cheong shows us a surprising side to the country’s ubiquitous cheerful ‘taxi uncle,’ while Suchen Christine Lim spins a wistful tale of a Chinese temple medium whose past resurges to haunt her . . . "As for mine, I chose a setting close to my heart―the kelongs, or old fisheries on stilts, that once dotted the waters of Singapore but are gradually disappearing. I have a deep sense of romance about these kelongs, along with the many other settings, characters, nuances, and quirks that you’ll see in these stories. They’re intense, inky, nebulous. There is evil, sadness, a foreboding. And liars, cheaters, the valiant abound. "This is a Singapore rarely explored in Western literature―until now. No Disneyland here; but there is a death penalty.” " Singapore Noir is another fine addition to the Akashic’s Noir series. Under Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s tutelage, the stories puncture the stereotypes associated with Singapore and push the genre in new directions. " ― Chicago Center for Literature and Photography "Across the book as a whole a picture emerges of Singapore, an image at variance with tourist board literature and with the popular conception of a safe but over-controlled conformist society." ― Crime Review (UK) " Singapore Noir, like Belfast Noir, once again proves that Akashic Books’ noir series is better than any travel guide. " ― MysteryPeople Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is the New York–based author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family . A native of Singapore, she is working on her second book, a novel. A former staff writer at the Wall Street Journal , her work has also appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post , among other publications. She has been an artist in residence at Yaddo and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Singapore Noir By Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan Akashic Books Copyright © 2014 Akashic Books All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-61775-235-3 Contents Introduction by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, PART I: SIRENS, Last Time Colin Goh Raffles Place, Detective in a City with No Crime Simon Tay Writing as Donald Tee Quee Ho Tanglin, Strangler Fig Philip Jeyaretnam Bukit Panjang, Smile, Singapore Colin Cheong Ang Mo Kio, PART II: LOVE (OR SOMETHING LIKE IT), Reel Cheryl Li-Lien Tan Changi, Mother Monica Bhide Kallang, Kena Sai S.J. Rozan Bukit Timah, Tattoo Lawrence Osborne Geylang, PART III: GODS & DEMONS, Mei Kwei, I Love You Suchen Christine Lim Potong Pasir, Spells Ovidia