Captivating: entwining family relationships, youth seeking a better life, traditional beliefs, and crime thriller in British-colonized 1930's Malay. The story alternates between a houseboy whose master has died leaving him with the responsibility of locating his severed finger, and a girl making her way when cut off from schooling who is pulled into a vortex of serial mysterious deaths. Again, insights into a country and time I know little about.