Bøker av Dawn Farnham

In 1942, during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, two seasoned homicide detectives-one a Eurasian, caught between two worlds, and the other, a pacifist Japanese escaping dark and tragic secrets at home-are thrown together to solve a high-profile murder and come to terms with each other under the yoke of a brutal and corrupt military regime.Eurasian homicide detective, Martin Bach, has survived the war and the surrender: now all he has to do is survive the occupation. The Brits are locked up and his new boss at the CID is the ex-police chief of Nagasaki, enigmatic Kano Hayashi, installed by the new regime. Despite being complete strangers, the two men team up to solve the vicious murder of the young trophy wife of a wealthy old friend of the Marquis Fujimoto, Civilian Governor of Malaya-and the Emperor of Japan's brother-in-law. The case naturally captivates the public. So, the Japanese military administration, desperate to win the hearts and minds of the local population, demands that justice at least be seen to be done...and quickly.To find the elusive killer, Bach and Hayashi must confront their own dark secrets, grapple with the brutal iniquities and indignities of occupation, and learn to work together while struggling to maintain their own rigorous moral codes in a world where morality is trumped by survival...and where their own lives are very much at stake."Japan's fraught and ugly wartime occupation of Singapore comes alive through the discovery of a dead Eurasian woman's body and resulting murder investigation in this gritty police procedural. International history buffs will especially enjoy the unraveling of this intricate multicultural mystery." Naomi Hirahara, author of Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning Clark and Division and Edgar Award-winning Mas Arai series

It is 1950. Singapore and the worst riots the island has ever seen have shut down the town for days, killing 18 people and wounding 173. Racial and religious tension has been simmering for months over the custody battle for wartime waif Maria Hertogh between her Malay Muslim foster mother and her Dutch-Catholic biological parents. Eurasian Annie Collins, following the Maria Hertogh case and filled with hope, returns to Singapore seeking her own lost baby Maria. As the time bomb ticks and Annie unravels the threads of her quest into increasingly dangerous territory, she finds strange recollections intruding...

Amidst the struggles of war-torn 1950 Singapore, the chaos of the Malayan Emergency and the violence of the Maria Hertogh race riots, a journey into the past brings a chilling discovery for Eurasian Annie Collins, who returns to Singapore seeking her lost baby. This well-crafted story is a lament for the loss and damage of war, an unraveling mystery and a journey into suppressed memory and the nature of self-delusion

In the fourth and final volume of the The Straits Quartet, Charlotte Macleod is the English concubine. Her love affair with Zhen, wealthy Chinese merchant, is an open scandal to both the English and the Chinese communities. Singapore in 1860 is a vice-ridden town filled 'with the dregs of humanity from two continents.'

In Volume 3 of The Straits Quartet, young, beautiful and wealthy widow Charlotte Macleod leaves Batavia in the 1850s and returns to Singapore for the English education of her two young sons. She is determined not to be drawn back into a secret affair with Zhen, the married Chinese merchant, triad-member and man she loves.

In Volume 2 of The Straits Quartet, Charlotte Macleod is nineteen, pregnant, and alone in 1842. Through loss and pain, Charlotte will find a way to make a life with a man she does not love.

Set against the backdrop of 1830s Singapore where piracy, crime, triads and tigers are commonplace, this cultural romance follows the struggle of two lovers: Zhen, once the lowliest of Chinese coolies and triad member, later chosen to marry into a Peranakan family of Baba Chinese merchants; and Charlotte, an 18-year-old Scots girl and sister of Singapore's Chief of Police.