The Betel Nut Tree Mystery

Charming and fascinating with great authentic feel. Ovidia Yu’s teenage Chinese sleuth gives us an insight into a very different culture and time. This book is exactly why I love historical novels. I learn while I am being entertained.

The Frangipani Tree Mystery transports readers to 1930’s Singapore, with compelling suspects, a page-turning plot, and an engaging, witty sleuth. Immersive and intriguing from the opening page to the satisfying end.

A new book by Ovidia Yu is always a treat; a new series is an occasion for rejoicing. I loved it and will be following this series eagerly for more of both Su Lin and the world she lives in.

The setting of The Frangipani Tree Mystery is simply glorious. Every nook and cranny of 1930s Singapore is brought richly to life, without ever getting in the way of a classic puzzle plot. But what’s a setting without a jewel? Chen Su Lin is a true gem. Her slyly witty voice and her admirable, sometimes heartbreaking, practicality make her the most beguiling narrator heroine I’ve met in a long while.

Ovidia Yu’s Singaporean sleuth is as clever and resourceful as ever (…) The Betel Nut Tree Mystery (…) satisfyingly fuses cosy crime drama with incisive cultural history. - South China Morning Post

Ovidia Yu is one of Singapore’s best-known and most acclaimed writers. She has had over thirty plays produced and is the author of a number of comic mysteries published in Singapore, India, Japan and America.

She received a Fulbright to the University of Iowa’s International Writers Program and has been a writing fellow at the National University of Singapore and was awarded the S.E.A. Write Award for Singapore.