South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
‘The Murder of Mr. Ma’ a clever homage to Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes’ skills have provided the foundation of many mystery novels, films and TV series — the key being a sleuth who is uber-observant, who sees details others don’t. Holmes’ abilities can be connected with a multitude of backgrounds and ages.
Multi-award-winning author S.J. Rozan and debut author John Shen Yen Nee team up for a clever homage to Holmes set in 1924 London. Wellknown Judge Dee Ren
Jie has come to London to investigate the murder of Mr. Ma, who he knew during WWI while serving in the Chinese Labour Corps.
Through circumstances, Dee — the Sherlock — finds a partner in shy novelist and academic Lao She, the Watson.
They learn that other newly arrived men who also served in the Chinese Labour Corps are being killed. Dee believes that the men’s murders will not be taken seriously because of racism toward Chinese. He especially is leery of Metropolitan Police inspector William Bard, who openly disparages the Chinese. Bard harbors a grudge against Dee who angered him during the war.
Rozan and Shen show the rampant prejudice against Chinese, affecting business, housing and other aspects of life in London. Vivid details about the period further enhance the story, including a running reference that the game of “mei-jongg” is “sweeping London,” plus underground gambling, clandestine opium use, and interest in Chinese antiques and goods. Dee wryly observes that the “current fashion for our art does not, it seems, translate to a fashion for our persons.”
The authors pepper “The Murder of Mr. Ma” with real people, such as mathematician Bertrand Russell and poet Ezra Pound. Dee and Lao are based on real people as well, though they lived 1,200 years apart. Dee is based on Di Ren Jie, a magistrate who lived during the early Tang Dynasty, while Lao was the pen name of a Manchu intellectual. Judge Dee was the hero of a series of novels during the 1940s and 1950s.
This attention to real people adds heft to the plot. Rozan, author of the award-winning series about private detectives Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, and Shen, whose background is in comics and digital storytelling, have launched a highly entertaining new series with “The Murder of Mr. Ma.”