The Singapore Exile Murders

Hugh North #15

by F. Van Wyck Mason

This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection

Genres: Mystery

266 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1939

About the author

aka Geoffrey Coffin, Frank W. Mason, Ward Weaver

Francis Van Wyck Mason (November 11, 1901 – August 28, 1978, Bermuda) was an American historian and novelist. He had a long and prolific career as a writer spanning 50 years and including 65 published novels.

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entry in the Hugh North series was written just before the outbreak of WWII.

North is sent to Singapore to find an ex-army captain who has the formula for a lightweight steel. Of course, several other factions want the formula, and they all get to Singapore on the same plane as North.

Quite a novel. Hugh has dalliances with several ladies, and the settings and characters really came alive.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author has written fiction books about American history that are the most engaging books I've read of that genre. This book is a disappointment after reading those. It is disjointed and hard to follow at times. I wonder if the author had to shorten it and took out several transition chapters. Don't judge this author by THIS book. Read his American Revolution series and you will learn more about the start of the country than you can learn in high school.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satisfying Hugh North thriller/mystery. Something of a transition piece as well, as Mason's Hugh North mainly took on pure espionage work in Mason's post World War II writing. Before the war, however, murder always featured prominently in North's cases. Here, murder and espionage feature about equally, with German and Japanese agents in it up to their eyeballs in killings, while the formula for light weight steel used in aircraft, tanks, and other war machines holds center place right until the end. Often, in Mason's series, the espionage serves as something akin to what Hitchcock would term a MacGuffin, as individual malice, greed, and hatred displaces the official concern that may have brought North into a case. Not in Exile Murders, however, which was published on the eve of World War II and has German and Japanese expansion plans as part of its background.

These pre World War II North books have a decidedly better use of atmosphere in exotic locations than the postwar books. Mason himself traveled the world early in life, and I'm guessing that is why the early works seem so much more authentic. He brings life experience to travelling and living in circumstances that had changed greatly by the 1950s. But in the 1930s, Mason's own memories resonated with what Hugh North would have actually encountered. So does Mason's dialog and descriptive passages. North's military argot rings true in the thirties novels more than in the postwar ones.