I’ve met my deadlines for the April issue, but I’m finishing up the book I’ll review tomorrow, a classic PI novel. So, I’m taking advantage of Kevin Tipple’s submitted reviews. Today, Kevin reviews the second in Rozlan Mohd Noor’s Inspector Mislan series. Thank you, Kevin.

DUKE: Inspector Mislan and The Expressway Murders by Rozlan Mohd Noor is the second in the series that began with 21 Immortals: Inspector Mislan and the Yee Sang Murders. This book is also set during a holiday. In this case, it is about to be the Eid or the Hari Raya holiday at the end of Ramadan.

A crash on the DUKE Expressway is never helpful and certainly not now during the holiday period. A black Mercedes E200 crashed and a quick glance in the car indicates that a man and a woman are both dead by the amount of blood on their bodies. It soon becomes clear that they died by gunshots. Because the two deceased individuals were both powerful business people with serious connections, it is not long before the Special Investigations Unit, formerly known as Major Crimes, is brought into the case.

That means Inspector Mislan Latif and detective Sergeant Johan Kamarudin are on the case. From the first glance into the car, Inspector Mislan thinks that the deaths of sixty-year-old Mahadi Mokshin and thirty-four-year-old Zaleha Jalani, are far more complicated than a simple murder-suicide. The way the car crashed, the way the figures are in the car, and other aspects of the scene become critical pieces of evidence to Inspector Mislan that lead to his growing belief that there was a third person, the actual shooter, in the car.

The problem is that he has to not only prove there was a third person in the car, he also has to prove the identity of that person. As the pressure from the media and the police bureaucracy mount to close the case as a lover’s triangle gone wrong that led to a murder-suicide, it becomes clear that there are many powerful forces working against his and his team’s efforts to get to the bottom of what happened in that car and why. Things get complicated quickly when the rich and powerfully connected start exerting their influence upon all involved.

Once again, author Rozlan Mohd Noor brings the sights, sounds, and culture of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to life in this second book of the series. Along with the rich detailed setting of a land far away from American readers, the author details a police investigation that could just easily happen here in any city. Those who are connected to a crime and have the means to exert their influence, almost always try to insulate themselves from the investigation and the public scrutiny. It is a universal human condition and one that speaks across societal as well as cultural divides.

Greed, corruption, money and the power of politics to shape a certain result is a universal problem familiar to readers everywhere. DUKE: Inspector Mislan and the Expressway Murders by Rozlan Mohd Noor is a solidly good police procedural well worth your time.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021