Moonrise, Sunset
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- 54,99 zł
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- 54,99 zł
Publisher Description
About the Book:
Hours after agreeing to marry How Kum Menon, Vanita Sundram is murdered, stabbed while asleep in her fiance's arms. More killings follow, and the reluctant and grieving How Kum is swept up in the police investigation. As time passes and the murders remain unsolved, several self-proclaimed experts muscle in: How Kum's drunken 'Uncle' Oscar with his underworld links: the unlikely double-act of an American psycho-sexual healer and his matronly psychic sidekick: and a Hindu holy-man...
A political thriller in the tradition of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, Moonrise, Sunset enhances Gopal Baratham's reputation as Singapore's most brilliant and controversial writer.
About the Author:
The late Dr Gopal Baratham (1935-2002) was a proud Singaporean, a distinguished writer and a prominent neurosurgeon in about equal parts. He was born in the quiet of the mid-thirties, survived in the turmoil of the fifties and sixties and in the nineties, found the tranquillity for writing.
Considered a literary light during his lifetime, his oeuvre consists of five volumes of short stories, three novels and non-fiction book. His first book, A Candle or The Sun, won the Southeast Asia Write Award in 1991 and was short-listed for the Commonwealth Book Prize in 1992. One of the first Singapore writers to have their work published by an overseas publisher, his books also received much international praise.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Baratham (A Candle or the Sun) takes the traditional mystery format apart piece by piece, then puts it together again to create a mystical and cerebral novel. How Kum Menon-the son of a Chinese woman and an Indian man-falls asleep in a Singapore park with his fiancee, Vanita Sundram, after a romantic evening; but when he wakes up, her bloody, lifeless body is draped over his. She has been stabbed to death, as have a couple in another area of the park, and Menon, after being initially suspected of the murder, is enlisted to help find the real guilty party. The characters are clear and distinct: Jafri al-Misris, Menon's slick lawyer friend; Sundram's vindictive brother and her deeply religious father; and Menon's worried mother (who is suspiciously missing a kitchen knife). Tragedy brings the charlatans out of the woodwork: the "Ayurvedic physician" who advises Sundram's father; the American serial-killer expert brought in to detail the killer's "biosocial make-up"; and psychic Zelda Zoroastris, who plans to solve the murder with the help of a polygraph. Sundram herself continues to appear to Menon after her death, and gives him a hand. Even more impressive than the sharp characterization is Menon's measured narration. Strong, controlled writing full of concrete images keeps the ethereal subject matter in check and carries the plot along with just the right amount of skepticism.
