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    Shadow Play
    Spirit Play
    Ebook series2 titles

    The Mak Chik Maryam Mysteries Series

    By Barbara Ismail

    4/5

    ()

    About this series

    In this cozy mystery series opener, a 1970s Malaysian Miss Marple’s murder investigation sheds light on the darker side of a local theater.

    Mak Chik Maryam is one of the middle-aged “aunties” who sell batiks in the local market and offer advice on any subject that might cross their paths. Of course, not everyone is grateful for the opinion. The new police chief, for example, seems to imagine that he could figure out this terrible murder on his own, without Maryam’s help. She soon puts him straight and sets out sleuthing. But solving the murder will take Maryam into some hidden corners of a community she thought she knew well. It will introduce her to some ugly aspects of the Shadow Play—the traditional Malyasian theater and the performers who specialize in it. And it will require her to acknowledge that jealousy, rivalries and even black magic run like a dark river through a world she had imagined was simple and sunlit.

    “For lovers of armchair tourism and detective stories, Barbara Ismail has created a winner in her series about Mak Chik Maryam.” —The Straits Times (Malaysia)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateFeb 18, 2011
    Shadow Play
    Spirit Play

    Titles in the series (2)

    • Spirit Play
      Spirit Play

      Spirit Play

      Barbara Ismail
      4/5 - 5 ratings
      4/5 - 5 ratings

      A Malaysian Miss Marple examines a suspicious death following an exorcism in this mystery by the author of Shadow Play for fans of Alexander McCall Smith. Mak Chik Maryam is by profession a market-trader: She sells the exquisite, hand-made fabrics for which her village is well known. But her true calling is as the Miss Marple of rural Malaysia, where her skills are badly needed. While the police-chief is a nice boy, everyone knows that no man can match a village “auntie” for coaxing out the gossip and separating rumor from the truth that shines like Maryam’s good gold jewelry. That discerning eye will come in particularly handy when one of Maryam’s fellow traders is murdered after a main puteri ceremony—essentially a ritual exorcism. Intoxicated by the “spirit play,” the villagers are eager to blame supernatural powers, but Maryam, ever the pragmatist, suspects some forces a little nearer at hand. “For lovers of armchair tourism and detective stories, Barbara Ismail has created a winner in her series about Mak Chik Maryam.” —The Straits Times (Malaysia)

      A Malaysian Miss Marple examines a suspicious death following an exorcism in this mystery by the author of Shadow Play for fans of Alexander McCall Smith. Mak Chik Maryam is by profession a market-trader: She sells the exquisite, hand-made fabrics for which her village is well known. But her true calling is as the Miss Marple of rural Malaysia, where her skills are badly needed. While the police-chief is a nice boy, everyone knows that no man can match a village “auntie” for coaxing out the gossip and separating rumor from the truth that shines like Maryam’s good gold jewelry. That discerning eye will come in particularly handy when one of Maryam’s fellow traders is murdered after a main puteri ceremony—essentially a ritual exorcism. Intoxicated by the “spirit play,” the villagers are eager to blame supernatural powers, but Maryam, ever the pragmatist, suspects some forces a little nearer at hand. “For lovers of armchair tourism and detective stories, Barbara Ismail has created a winner in her series about Mak Chik Maryam.” —The Straits Times (Malaysia)

    • Shadow Play
      Shadow Play

      Shadow Play

      Barbara Ismail
      4/5 - 1 rating
      4/5 - 1 rating

      In this cozy mystery series opener, a 1970s Malaysian Miss Marple’s murder investigation sheds light on the darker side of a local theater. Mak Chik Maryam is one of the middle-aged “aunties” who sell batiks in the local market and offer advice on any subject that might cross their paths. Of course, not everyone is grateful for the opinion. The new police chief, for example, seems to imagine that he could figure out this terrible murder on his own, without Maryam’s help. She soon puts him straight and sets out sleuthing. But solving the murder will take Maryam into some hidden corners of a community she thought she knew well. It will introduce her to some ugly aspects of the Shadow Play—the traditional Malyasian theater and the performers who specialize in it. And it will require her to acknowledge that jealousy, rivalries and even black magic run like a dark river through a world she had imagined was simple and sunlit. “For lovers of armchair tourism and detective stories, Barbara Ismail has created a winner in her series about Mak Chik Maryam.” —The Straits Times (Malaysia)

      In this cozy mystery series opener, a 1970s Malaysian Miss Marple’s murder investigation sheds light on the darker side of a local theater. Mak Chik Maryam is one of the middle-aged “aunties” who sell batiks in the local market and offer advice on any subject that might cross their paths. Of course, not everyone is grateful for the opinion. The new police chief, for example, seems to imagine that he could figure out this terrible murder on his own, without Maryam’s help. She soon puts him straight and sets out sleuthing. But solving the murder will take Maryam into some hidden corners of a community she thought she knew well. It will introduce her to some ugly aspects of the Shadow Play—the traditional Malyasian theater and the performers who specialize in it. And it will require her to acknowledge that jealousy, rivalries and even black magic run like a dark river through a world she had imagined was simple and sunlit. “For lovers of armchair tourism and detective stories, Barbara Ismail has created a winner in her series about Mak Chik Maryam.” —The Straits Times (Malaysia)

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