DUKE:
Inspector Mislan and The Expressway Murders by Rozlan Mohd Noor is the second in the
series that began with 21 Immortals: Inspector Mislan and the Yee SangMurders. This book is also set during a holiday. In this case, it is about
to be the Eid or the Hari Raya holiday at the end of Ramadan.
A crash on the DUKE
Expressway is never helpful and certainly not now during the holiday period. A
black Mercedes E200 crashed and a quick glance in the car indicates that a man
and a woman are both dead by the amount of blood on their bodies. It soon
becomes clear that they died by gunshots. Because the two deceased individuals
were both powerful business people with serious connections, it is not long
before the Special Investigations Unit, formerly known as Major Crimes, is
brought into the case.
That means Inspector
Mislan Latif and detective Sergeant Johan Kamarudin are on the case. From the first
glance into the car, Inspector Mislan thinks that the deaths of sixty-year-old
Mahadi Mokshin and thirty-four-year-old Zaleha Jalani, are far more complicated
than a simple murder-suicide. The way the car crashed, the way the figures are
in the car, and other aspects of the scene become critical pieces of evidence
to Inspector Mislan that lead to his growing belief that there was a third
person, the actual shooter, in the car.
The problem is
that he has to not only prove there was a third person in the car, he also has
to prove the identity of that person. As the pressure from the media and the
police bureaucracy mount to close the case as a lover’s triangle gone wrong
that led to a murder-suicide, it becomes clear that there are many powerful
forces working against his and his team’s efforts to get to the bottom of what happened
in that car and why. Things get complicated quickly when the rich and
powerfully connected start exerting their influence upon all involved.
Once again, author Rozlan Mohd Noor brings the sights, sounds, and culture of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to life in this second book of the series. Along with the rich detailed setting of a land far away from American readers, the author details a police investigation that could just easily happen here in any city. Those who are connected to a crime and have the means to exert their influence, almost always try to insulate themselves from the investigation and the public scrutiny. It is a universal human condition and one that speaks across societal as well as cultural divides.
Greed,
corruption, money and the power of politics to shape a certain result is a universal
problem familiar to readers everywhere. DUKE: Inspector Mislan and the
Expressway Murders by Rozlan Mohd Noor is a solidly good police procedural
well worth your time.
The third book
in the series, UTube: Inspector Mislan and the Emancipatist Conspiracy,
is now out and on order at the Dallas Public Library System. I have a hold on a
copy when they get it in.
DUKE: Inspector
Mislan and The Expressway Murders
Rozlan Mohd Noor
Arcade CrimeWise
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/arcade-publishing/
March 2021
ISBN#
978-1-950691-41-8
Hardback (also
available in eBook format)
336 Pages
My copy came via the Martin Luther King JR Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple
©2021
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