Spirit Play

Although cloth vendor Mak Cik Maryam swore off amateur detecting after almost losing her life in 2017’s Shadow Play, she allows her friend Osman, the police chief of Kota Bharu, a town in the Malaysian state of Kelantan, to take on a new case in this so-so sequel. Maryam lives close enough to Jamillah, who has a stall in the Kota Bharu market, to hear the chanting when the woman undergoes an exorcism arranged by her family to cure her of minor ills. The morning after the ritual, Jamillah is found dead in her bed with signs that she was smothered. Given that none of her relatives at the scene reported hearing anything, suspicion attaches first to her husband, who was sleeping next to her. Since Osman is unfamiliar with the local dialect, Maryam agrees to help with the questioning. She goes on to take a more active role in the investigation, at some risk to herself. Maryam, whose thinking isn’t always logical, doesn’t impress as a sleuth. This entry works better as an introduction to the region’s culture and cuisine than as a mystery. [em](Sept.) [/em]