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Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics, The
02/07/07 16:27
HOW TO SOLVE CRIMES WITH YOUR EYES SHUT
by Nury Vittachi
When someone is murdered or robbed or raped in
But in many cases, families will also call the feng shui master. His job will be to study the harmonies of the place and the people using it, and alleviate any remaining negativity.
What if the feng shui master was smarter than the cop? What if investigating the disharmonies in a group of people proved more revealing than the data dug up by standard police techniques? Then, for the master, it becomes a race against the police to work out what really happened – and how best to profit from it.
That’s the premise of the feng shui detective books. They turn the traditional crime-thriller story upside down. Feng shui master CF Wong is not interested in physical evidence, nor does he want to catch villains and lock them up. Being a hero is not his thing: too dangerous and messy. He’d rather leave all that to the police.
What he wants is to refine his techniques for solving problems by being super-aware of factors seen and unseen – human tensions, unobvious signals, chi energy, subliminal messages and so on. But most of all, he wants to earn a quick buck and get on to the next job.
I have been thrilled with the response to my books from readers and critics. The Age newspaper, for example, said the tales were ‘well nigh perfect in their Holmesian precision and elegance, but much funnier . . . When a crime book makes you laugh out loud and often, it’s time to pass the good news on. Blow
The books are billed as ‘quirky crime’ but there’s a serious side to them, too. East and West need desperately to understand each other, and you don’t have to dig too deep in these volumes to find tools designed to break down barriers. There are also lessons in adopting an eastern world view. But this comes with a measure of risk; one reader wrote and told me, ‘It was the first time I read a novel that prompted me to redesign my house and my office.’
