Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials (37 page)

“
You
stopped her,” Commissioner Raja said. “It’s hard to believe. On the surface they
were such decent, law-abiding people. It just shows how little you can tell.”

“According to Mabel, the laws necessary to maintain social order are not the same
as God’s laws. To her that meant she had a God-given right to save her son by any
means that did not upset the social order. Sharon is very like her mother. She felt
her mother had cheated her, so she was entitled to get what she wanted as long as
she didn’t get caught.”

“I can’t believe old Henry Sung went along with it,” Aunty Lee said.

“Henry Sung always let his wife run him. He only did as well as he did because of
her. If he had married someone else, he might have spent his whole life working in
a government hospital and living in a semidetached house. Mabel was always the energetic
driving force. But Henry Sung liked being rich and comfortable, and once Mabel was
gone, Sharon was his only hope of maintaining that lifestyle. Henry spent most of
his life doing what his wife told him. It was easy for him to switch to obeying his
daughter’s orders, no questions asked.”

“She could have killed you,” Commissioner Raja said feelingly. Death could come so
quickly and almost easily, but with irreversible consequences, and Aunty Lee, caught
up in the thrill of figuring out the ingredients that had gone into producing killers,
seemed to be forgetting this. “Sharon Sung would have killed you if she could. You
might be dead now. Think about that.”

Aunty Lee thought about it.

“I want to serve crab cakes at my funeral,” Aunty Lee said. “Made with fresh pepper
crab meat inside a light batter pastry. I can make them in advance and freeze them
and all Nina will have to do is put them in a deep fat fryer. But I haven’t made them
yet, so I’m glad I’m not dead yet.”

Raja Kumar looked at her with some exasperation, but Aunty Lee was not just being
facetious. She had just realized that the heavy cloud of misery that had hung over
her for so long, carrying the conviction that everything she did was pointless, had
evaporated.

“That poor China man and poor Benjamin Ng are still dead for nothing. But poor Patrick
came with Timmy Pang tonight, so at least the brothers are eating together now. You
know, we may offer food to remember the dead, but funerals and feasts are for the
living, do you know what I mean? People must go on eating together to remind themselves
why life is worth living.”

“And you will go on feeding us.” Raja Kumar laughed. He almost added “from beyond
the grave,” but stopped himself. “We should go. Mycroft and Cherril have already gone
and Nina and Salim are waiting to lock up.”

“You see?” Aunty Lee took a moment to say to the portrait by the wine room as she
picked up her handbag. “I told you things would work out all right.”

ML Lee, as tactful in death as in life, did not contradict her.

So many wonderful people helped me make this book happen. I would like to thank Priya
Doraswamy, my magical agent, Rachel Kahan, my wonderful editor, NaNoWriMo-er (the
insanely wonderful milieu which helped me get the first draft down), the Magic Spreadsheet
(which guided me through rewrites), the Artist’s Way Circle (which told me I was a
writer before I was one), KanbanFlow (which provided work-life balance), Bouchercon-ers
(who made me believe I could do a second book), and all the great people at William
Morrow/HarperCollins who did the real work of making this book happen: Trish Daly,
Joanne Minutillo, Alaina Waagner, Jennifer Hart, Liate Stehlik, Joyce Wong, Austin
Tripp, David Wolfson, and Sarah Woodruff.

P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .

About the author

Meet Ovidia Yu

About the book

Reading Group Guide to
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
by Ovidia Yu

Read on

Aunty Lee’s Easy Candlenut Chicken Curry

Cherril’s Ginger Lemongrass Doctail

Aunty Lee’s Guide to All Things Singapore

About the author

Meet Ovidia Yu

Photo by Kar-Wai Wesley

OVIDIA YU
is one of Singapore’s best-known and most acclaimed writers. Since dropping out of
medical school to write for theater, she has had more than thirty plays produced in
Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including
the Edinburgh Fringe First Award–winning play
The Woman in a Tree on the Hill
.

The author of
Aunty Lee’s Delights
and
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
and a number of other mysteries that have been published in Singapore and India,
Ovidia Yu received a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the University of Iowa’s International
Writers Program and has been a writing fellow at the National University of Singapore.
She speaks frequently at literary festivals and writers’ conferences throughout Asia.

Despite her writing career, when she is recognized in Singapore it is usually because
of her stint as a regular celebrity guest on Singapore’s version of the American television
game show
Pyramid
.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

About the book

Reading Group Guide to
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
by Ovidia Yu

1.
   
 Aunty Lee loves her kitchen, which is “small enough to get around quickly but there
was space to fit in friends. She always felt that the bonds formed while cooking together
ran deeper than those formed merely eating together.” What role does cooking play
in your friendships and family life? How do you think cooking together encourages
bonding?

2.
   
 Aunty Lee likes buffets because she learns about people by watching how they pick
items off the buffet table. What might your buffet approach say about you to Aunty
Lee’s sharp eye?

3.
   
 The traditional
buah keluak
dish ends up at the center of the whodunnit. Why does Aunty Lee continue to prepare
such a labor-intensive dish when many don’t seem to appreciate its intricacies?

4.
   
 Mabel Sung claims to hate Peranakan food in the novel, and it seems that sometimes
a line is drawn between traditional, local fare like
buah keluak
and more modern. What does this say about Singaporean culture? What do the different
characters reveal about themselves in the way they respond to Aunty Lee’s food?

5.
   
 Singapore’s strict social codes play a role in the novel with many characters facing
legal challenges to their relationships: Nina’s status as a foreign domestic worker
and Patrick Pang’s sexual orientation. How do the characters in
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
participate—or not—in these codes? What is Aunty Lee’s take on the matter?

6.
   
 There is a complex web of moral and legal issues around the illegal organ donor
trade in the novel. Aunty Lee asks, “even if you have the organs, how does the law
decide who gets them? It’s like playing God. Throw a dice, pick at random. As long
as the people can pay.” Where do you think the members of the Never Say Die prayer
and healing group would fall in this debate? Do you sympathize with Mabel Sung’s attempts
to try to save her son—even at the cost of another’s life?

7.
   
 Appearances are very important in the world of
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
, from displaying family income to “appropriate” clothes to surgically enhanced or
repaired bodies. Are appearances deceptive? How does Aunty Lee use people’s needs
to maintain appearances to her advantage?

8.
   
 Among the shops at Bukit Timah Plaza are offices for travel and maid agencies, “full
of frightened hopeful young women come to Singapore to work and waiting for potential
employers to take their pick. They reminded Aunty Lee of desperate dogs in the adoption
pound . . . Or worse, they made her think of the ‘live’ seafood in the tanks outside
Chinese restaurants. Would anyone report a girl who ran away and died in a fire? Would
anyone even miss her?” Singapore’s underclass of undocumented workers plays a large
role in the plot of
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
. How do the characters in the novel view these immigrants? How is this similar or
different from the way immigrants are treated in your home country?

9.
   
 Despite their differences, Cherril and Mycroft are one of few examples in the novel
of a happy couple, especially compared to Mark and Selina or the dysfunctional Sungs.
Why does Aunty Lee think their relationship works? What made her own marriage with
ML Lee so satisfying?

10.
 
   GraceFaith Ang, like Edmond Yong, is an unabashed social climber who cares only
about her own success, but it is her action that breaks the case wide open, while
Edmond only digs deeper into his crimes. Why do you think GraceFaith gave Aunty Lee
the documents and shut down the Sungs’ donor scheme? Was it her conscience? Or something
else?

11.
 
   Healing through grief is a theme in the novel: Anne Peters walks her dog three
times a day, while Aunty Lee stays busy, makes food, and solves mysteries. Yet even
cheerful Aunty Lee still grieves: “Now that loss was a permanent part of her life,
she saw that the custom [of offering food to the dead] was less a matter of superstition
than of wanting those you loved most to share your experiences.” Because she has experienced
loss, she feels compassion for Patrick Pang after his partner’s death. Does your culture
or family have customs around the grieving process? In what ways have you or those
you know learned to heal?

12.
 
   Commissioner Raja confesses at the end of the book that he was worried the Sungs
might kill Aunty Lee. She, of course, takes this as a cue to reflect on what food
might be served at her funeral, saying: “We may offer food to remember the dead, but
funerals and feasts are for the living. . . . People must go on eating together to
remind themselves why life is worth living.” Do you agree with Aunty Lee’s pragmatic
outlook on life and death? What food would you have served at your funeral?