Crime in the City: Singapore, World Capital of the Cozy Mystery | Literary Hub

Given the sultry temperatures that envelop Singapore pretty much all year round you might not expect the city's crime fiction to be dissimilar to other Southeast Asian noir, the strength-sapping humidity leaving everyone wrung out and tense. While that is mostly what you get in crime writing from Bangkok and Phnom Penh, for example, Singapore, the city state William Gibson famously dubbed "Disneyland with the Death Penalty," also, perhaps surprisingly, specializes in quirky, mildly amusing, sometimes bizarre cozies-masses of sunshine, food, friendly fat aunts and crimes that make a Miss Marple story look like an episode of The Wire. So here's a spoiler-if you like your crime fiction hardboiled and noir-ish read the next two paragraphs and then skip to another article.