Verdadero experto en Feng Shui, el señor C.F. Wong es un caballero típicamente chino, es decir, discreto, formal, sabio y reservado. Afincado en Singapur, un compromiso profesional lo obliga a contratar como ayudante a Joyce, una chica extrovertida y desenvuelta que le provoca cierta irritación. No obstante, una extraña alquimia se produce entre Wong y Joyce, convirtiéndose en una pareja de probada eficacia. Así, cuando el azar los lleva a resolver un crimen aplicando los preceptos del Feng Shui, el señor Wong y su original compañera se ven envueltos en nueve casos tan enrevesados como divertidos, cuya resolución demuestra hasta qué punto esta sabiduría milenaria es capaz de penetrar en el corazón de las personas.

Mr. Wong is a feng shui consultant in Hong Kong who occasionally uses his skills for more than just interior decoration. In this particular book, he finds himself looking into multiple odd cases, including an apparent kidnapping, a ghost at a dentist's office, and a young lady who various psychic readings indicate that she will soon die.

The publisher's description makes it sound like that last case is Wong's primary focus throughout the book, but it actually takes quite a while before he becomes directly involved (unless I zoned out and missed something, which is honestly possible). One of the biggest issues I had with this book was the way it meandered, despite several supposedly time-sensitive issues.

Wong was "assisted" by his utterly useless office administrator, Winnie Lim, and his young intern, Joyce McQuinnie. A few pages after I wondered why Wong put up with Winnie, the author provided an answer (she'd made herself indispensable with an office filing system only she understood), but after her third or fourth refusal to answer the office phone, I decided replacing Winnie would probably be worth reorganizing all the files.

Joyce was better, once the author allowed readers to learn more about her from her own POV rather than Wong's very "Westernized young people are incomprehensible" POV. She was adrift and didn't really feel like she belonged anywhere. Although her father supported her financially (which she later realized was a good deal better than nothing), he was otherwise pretty absent from her life. Wong inadvertently gave Joyce an emotional boost when he gave her his kidnapping case (mostly because he didn't think it was a real kidnapping and he just wanted it out of his hair) since she knew several of the people involved. I could see Wong and Joyce's relationship being a big part of this series' draw later on - their difficulty communicating with each other was occasionally amusing and could be even more appealing if it was combined with Wong purposely becoming a supportive figure in Joyce's life.

For the most part, the mysteries didn't really interest me, even as the connections between some of them were revealed. I did, however, enjoy the way Wong's feng shui knowledge was worked into things (although I don't know enough about feng shui to know if it was accurate) - he tended to pay close attention to architectural plans and other information that might indicate the location of water pipes and other features important to his work. Some of those parts were so practical that it was somewhat of a shock how badly Wong reacted to the Sydney Opera House and its supposedly terrible feng shui later on in the book. (And now I have questions, because some googling indicates that feng shui principles inspired the building's architecture, but the things I've seen mentioned only slightly overlap with what Vittachi brings up in this book.)

I don't see myself going out of my way to read more of this series, but if I happen to come across another one of its books, I might try it just to see if Wong and Joyce learn to mesh better.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Ein Feng-Shui-Meister aus Singapur und seine australische Assistentin lösen Kriminalfälle nebenbei. Das Buch ist sehr witzig, weil es in den beiden Hauptfigfuren einen Zusammenprall von Yin und Yang, von Ost und West demonstriert, der sehr amüsiert. Dass der Autor Asiate ist und die asiatische Sichtweise einnimmt, finde ich besonders reizvoll. Das Buch hat mehrere Episoden, die mir alle gefallen, mich erheitert und mich gleichzeitig auch etwas über Feng-Shui gelehrt haben. Ich fand auch die einleitenden Texte immer sehr schön. ( )

A marvelous mix of Asian themes and detective fiction, with a marvelous overlay of droll humour. When you hire the Feng Shui detective he will solve the crime and reorganise your house. For a fee of course. ( )

A most enjoyable collection of amusing, entertaining and intruiging little mysteries. The culture clash aspect is well-exploited, although I found teenage assistant Joyce a little messy as a character -- I was sure she was from the US at the start due to the variety of English she spoke but it was later revealed she is English. Her voice just missed the mark of ringing true to me. That is a very small nitpick, however, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend these short stories as a pleasing, well-written, light-hearted diversion. ( )