Quirky characters and Singapore history anchor Ovidia Yu’s The Tembusu Tree Mystery

The Tembusu Tree Mystery 

By Ovidia Yu
Fiction/Constable/Paperback/320 pages/$23.95 

Quietly, without much fuss, Ovidia Yu has become one of the key chroniclers of Singapore history via her long-running Crown Colony cosy fiction series. The Tembusu Tree Mystery is the 10th instalment since the series debuted in 2017 with The Frangipani Tree Mystery. 

The series has obviously been commercially successful enough that publisher Constable is keeping up the steady stream of a book a year to feed reader addiction. 

For the uninitiated, the heroine of the Crown Colony stories is Chen Su Lin, a Peranakan orphan brought up by her formidable grandmother Chen Tai. Since debuting as an intrepid 16-year-old and aspiring reporter in the first book, Su Lin has matured into an independent woman who, despite suffering a bout of childhood polio, has parlayed her talent for languages into an asset that helped her survive World War II. 

As Singapore emerges from the ashes of the war, Su Lin seems to be rebuilding her life, but there are challenges in store. Life as a relative newly-wed with her one-time boss and former police inspector Thomas Le Froy is proving slightly rocky as he seems to be keeping secrets from her. 

Another storm brewing on the home front is the slow decline of her indomitable grandmother and the looming question of who will take over the shady business empire Chen Tai has built. 

The ever-pragmatic Su Lin is also focused on practical matters, having taken on a new job keeping accounts and managing the reopening of the posh Imperial cinema owned by the rich Khoo family. 

This grand event is, of course, disrupted by a murder. Tony, aspiring musician and Khoo scion, is found dead under a tembusu tree. The body count starts to climb and, as usual, Su Lin and Le Froy are drawn into hunting for the murderer. 

One of the pleasures of reading this series is the trainspotting, as familiar landmarks and personalities pop up in the course of the narrative. The Imperial cinema is a thinly disguised version of the Cathay Building, complete with a gory wartime history as a site where decapitated heads were displayed. The cinema also offers the excuse for a P. Ramlee cameo. 

The mischievous Yu, who penned the 2022 play Kwa Geok Choo, about the late Mrs Lee Kuan Yew, also cannot resist working in extended cameos of the youthful Kwa and Harry Lee. The latter also utters a chortle-inducing Easter egg line: “Sentimentality is a luxury we can’t afford.” 

The murders in this series have become increasingly secondary to the evolving cast of characters and the lovingly detailed historical settings. 

Among the characters, the beloved Chen Tai, with her sharp insights and gruff pragmatism, will be missed. It is no spoiler to mourn her since her impending demise had been signalled quite determinedly in The Rose Apple Tree Mystery, which preceded this book.

What will intrigue fans is the fact that Su Lin is primed to take over her grandmother’s black market business – a development which history buffs will anticipate in upcoming books that take the series into the 1950s and the heyday of secret societies. 

This adherence to chronology has turned the Crown Colony series into an engaging crash course on the island’s history for both Singaporean and global audiences. Over the past decade, its stories have referenced everything from India’s independence movement to the Imperial Japanese Army’s secret biological and chemical warfare headquarters in Singapore.

Yu’s observant eye has captured Singapore in all its multicultural rojak glory – from the class and race divides of colonial society to the miseries of the Japanese Occupation to post-war political stirrings. 

The Tembusu Tree Mystery retains the decolonising element which first turned this reviewer into a fan of the series. The introduction of new character Alastair Veitch, a fresh British factotum seemingly determined to reassert Empire authority over the colony, provides the requisite colonial baddie. 

One of the worries for a marathon series is the challenge of avoiding falling into a formula. The changing historical and political landscape of Singapore actually keeps the series from becoming too predictable. This, unfortunately, cannot be said of the murder mystery element. Seasoned mystery fans can probably figure out the murderer fairly quickly.

Still, the appeal of cosy mysteries is seldom just the intellectual puzzle of the whodunnit, and in this series, Yu has perfected the combination of quirky characters and detailed scenery that draws fans back for more. And she has cannily seeded characters and plot developments that will likely entice readers to pick up the next instalment.

Like its titular tree, this slow-growing series has planted deep roots and this reviewer, for one, is curious to see where it will branch off to next. 

Rating: ★★★☆☆

If you like this, read: Ovidia Yu’s Aunty Lee’s Delights (William Morrow, 2013, $21.26), which has recently been adapted for the small screen. Meet affably kaypoh Peranakan matriarch Aunty Lee, who runs a food empire and solves murders as an accidental side hustle.