Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments (2023) by Hema Sukumar

 

🏬 I picked up this book in the first place because it has double appeals to me. First of all, I myself live in an apartment, and any book about apartment dwellers almost always attracts me. Secondly, this debut novel of Hema Sukumar is set in an Asian country, which I'd feel most related, as I am also an Indonesian. As a debut novel, I'm quite surprised to find this book as perfectly balanced in depth and its cultural background. It's not overly done - like many others Asian books might - and it is neither too light nor too heavy to read. It is a pleasant slice-of-life book with plausible story-line and amiable but realistic characters.

🏬 Grand Life Apartments is located in the beautiful coastal city of Chennai, India, and is owned by Mr. Mani, who had changed his ancestor's home to be a modern and comfortable middle-class apartment building. It is never mentioned how many residences it originally has, but the main characters in the story are three of them: Kamala (a widow-dentist), Revathi (a single thirty-ish career woman), and Jason (a young British chef). Each of them currently has their own struggles. Kamala's daughter, Lakshmi, had 'thrown a bomb' when she told her mother that she's a lesbian. Like most Asian mothers (I am terribly lucky that my mother isn't in this category), Kamala has been fretting and chasing Lakshmi to have a boyfriend and married properly, probably since she graduated college. It's a typical problem faced by most Asian girls. 

🏬 Similar to Lakshmi's previous ordeal, Reva has also been 'terrorized' by her mother to marry soon. This including sending possible candidates every now and then, continually asking updates on her dates with the respective candidates, and tons of hints about marriage. Reva, also typical of Asian daughters, is always torn between obeying her mother and making her happy, and pursuing her own choice of living - a suitable career and a partner she really wants to get married with. Jason, on the other hand, is a 'fish-out-of-water', so to speak. He fled from England following a painful break with his girlfriend, and just picking Chennai to be his temporary dwelling. His struggles is in burying the painful past, and adapting into his new surroundings. I loved it that both Kamala and Reva, as well as Mani, are accepting him with warm affection, that he soon finds his bearing, and starts to feeling himself again in no time (while cooking more and more Indian cuisine, which won Kamala's approval).

🏬 In the midst of their personal struggles, though, there looming another problem that will have had bigger impact on all of them. A big construction company has been pestering Mani to sell the apartment building, as they wanted to build more modern ones. Mani refused to do that, and now they are throwing threats. A lawyer (Kamala's best friend) is bringing the case to the court, and now they are just waiting nervously for their future. Would Kamala have to leave this apartment she has been staying for years, and must she find a new one in her age? Would Jason, who has just found his bearing in this apartment, have to be moving again? Amid these restless moments, Kamala, Reva, and Jason are always affectionately supporting each other. Could they save Grand Life Apartments in the end?

🏬 Like I said, this book turned out to be not like typical Asian novels. We are entertained by many Indian cuisines and cultural manners, as well as the most-related (to me personally) atmosphere of hot sunny days, mosquitoes, and the ceiling fan humming. But Sukumar could weave the story around it beautifully, that it never felt overwhelming. It is a gentle, heartwarming story, and Hema Sukumar is definitely my new favorite Asian writer!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Ten Teacups (1937) by Carter Dickson

☕ Although I'm a fan of simple but ingenious murder mysteries - such as what Agatha Christie had often delivered - every now and then I could also enjoy the impossible and intricate ones. The Ten Teacups was one of those. Moreover, it's written by John Dickson Carr - whose pen name of Carter Dickson was too obvious to be hidden from public. And this was my first introduction to Sir Henry Merrivale, the brain of this murder-series, who was accompanied by Chief Inspector Humphrey Master from Scotland Yard, and the young and bright Detective-Sergeant Bob Pollard. Merrivale is an old barrister and head of military intelligent of war office in England. 

☕ The mystery begins with an anonymous letter that Masters received, bearing the message that "There will be ten teacups at number 4, Berwick Terrace, W.8, on Wednesday, July 31st, at 5 p.m. Precisely. The presence of the Metropolitan Police is respectfully requested." Masters' immediate action is to consult Sir Henry Merrivale (or HM, as people usually call him), because the letter reminded Masters of another similar letter the Scotland Yard had received two years previously, which ended on an unsolved locked-room murder mystery. The police had then found ten teacups (empty) laid on the table near the body. This time, though, Masters is more prepared; he instructed his men to watch the house (number 4, Berwick Terrace, which was an empty house on-sale), and Sergeant Pollard to get the key from the agent, and hide himself inside. Despite of these precautions, Vance Keating was dead after having been shot twice, and ten teacups were found near his body, although the police never saw any other person entering the house.

☕ The most interesting part of a locked-room mystery is always the technicality of the murder. How was it performed while there's no one possibly inside the room? But here, the police were also struck by the similarity of it with the previous ten teacups mystery. Were the two connected, or even committed by the same murderer? One thing that they could connect was that both the houses were belonged to the same person. And this man, along with his wife, are the victim's friends. They are the suspects, along with three other friends. What puzzled HM and Masters at the early stages, was why had the murderer not brought the ten teacups with him when he left the place? Were they meant to be a symbol, perhaps? Was there even a ten-teacups-secret society perhaps? What ensued from these, were a combination of theories, interviews, and some actions in the end - the theories (presented by HM) are rather the dominant part compared to the rest.

☕ All in all, this was a solid intricate and impossible locked-room murder mystery. The one which, when you passed one solution, and then the second one, you would forget the previous one. I could remember the murderer, all right. Though I have expected Dickson Carr had given the murderer's more "stage" to elaborate on their motive, rather than reading HM's long-stretch of denouement - a dry explanation that made you a bit sleepy. And my problem with these impossible locked-room mysteries is the technicality. I couldn't possibly know, for instance, whether if you pointed a particular type of gun to a particular angle, it would produce a shot at a certain point, could I? No, it is much simpler to follow the technicality of how human psychology works than these weapons and what not. Nonetheless, this had been a quite entertaining one, though the solution was not what I have expected.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge 2026

hosted by Carol @ Carol's Notebook