The Feng Shui Detective, by Nury Vittachi, is just the sort of mystery you’re looking for if you need a break from the more grim, hard-nosed detectives and assassins, and want something lighter, even a little off-beat. You will be bemused and entertained by C.F. Wong, the aging feng shui master who inadvertently finds himself solving mystic and all-too-real mysteries, when all he really wants to do is be left alone to analyze the feng shui of wealthy people’s homes and send them very large invoices.
He runs into these mysteries partly on his own, but most of them are drawn to him by an Aussie-American teenaged assistant, a girl named Joyce McQuinnie, who has sort of been thrust on him as an intern. She speaks a thoroughly modern teenaged dialect, while Wong barely speaks English, and the moments when they actually understand each other are rare. Yet they plow on, Joyce discovering clues somewhat by accident, and Wong trying fervently to shut his eyes to information and bad feng shui that could threaten either his life or the big paycheck he dreams of.
In this first novel of what has turned out to be a series, Nury Vittachi combines some of the wisdom of the east with the “Duh!” practicality of western teendom, and creates a very entertaining team. Wong and Joyce go from solving the mystery of a ghost apparently groaning in a dentist’s office, to how an engaged girl disappeared as soon as she chose a suitor to please her family, to the big mystery of how to save a Chinese girl’s life when all the psychic signs and stars (not to mention her fiance) point to her imminent and certain death a few days from now. They also end up going from the streets of Singapore to Sydney, Australia where, it appears, the famous opera house has very bad feng shui indeed.
Vittachi was already a well-known writer in certain circles when this novel first appeared in Hong Kong in 2000. He has been a journalist in England, wrote hard-hitting but humourous columns in Hong Kong about cross-cultural clashes, and still writes columns that discuss cultural and other human differences. He has founded or helped to found several literary reviews and book prizes, and as well as his Feng Shui Detective novels, he also writes children’s books.
While not earth-shattering, this Feng Shui novel was very entertaining. The concept and characters, not to mention the story line, were so interesting that I’ll now be looking for the four subsequent books to see how Mr. Vittachi develops their further adventures.
Ohh, you got me intrigued with this one! I love the combination of mystery and humor, and the Eastern spice makes it irresistible. Added to wish list! Thanks for the nudge.:)