FICTION

THE MORE KNOWN WORLD

By Tiffany Tsao

AmazonCrossing/Paperback/ 293 pages/$25.54/Books Kinokuniya

Tsao returns with this sequel to her 2016 fantasy, The Oddfits, about young Murgatroyd Floyd, a blue-eyed blond outcast in Singapore who discovers he can access the invisible land called the More Known World.

Two years on, Murgatroyd and his mentor Ann Hsu are exploring the More Known World when a series of murders sends them to a strange new territory, the maddening, blood-red land of Cambodia-Abscond, where only the shadiest choose to settle and no questions are asked.

CHILDREN'S

USE YOUR HEAD

By Felix Cheong, illustrated by Natassya Diana Siregar

Straits Times Press/Paperback/ 36 pages/$16/Major bookstores

Acclaimed Singapore poet Felix Cheong is venturing into children's books with this tale of a boy, Kayden, who tumbles into a whimsical world of flamingos and hot-air balloons. It is told in rhyming couplets and accompanied by join-the-dot drawings for kids to fill in.

NON-FICTION

INDELIBLE CITY

By Chew Yi Wei

Marshall Cavendish/Paperback/ 111 pages/$18.68 before GST/ Major bookstores

In this collection of vignettes, Chew wanders through Singapore, tracing lines visible and invisible, and crafting a mnemonic map of the city through her musings on Holland Hill, lamp posts, popiah and more.

CRIME SCENE ASIA

By Liz Porter

Marshall Cavendish/Paperback/ 344 pages/$28 before GST/ Major bookstores

A dead woman is found in Bukit Batok Nature Park with no clue to her identity except the tiny numbers etched into her dental implants.

In Hong Kong, a mechanic asks his wife to start his car and she dies in the subsequent explosion. Was it an accident or murder?

Australian true crime writer Porter compiles 16 grisly cases across Asia - from headless bodies in Singapore's rivers to the 2002 Bali bombings - and shows how forensic science unravelled the mystery in each case.