Review: Inspector Zhang figures it out
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 2, 2011
I love Inspector Zhang, and this story, Inspector Zhang and the Dead Thai Gangster, is great.  In this one, Inspector Zhang and his sidekick, Sergeant Lee, are on a plane leaving their native Singapore for Bangkok, Thailand to bring back a businessman from Singapore who is being extradited on fraud charges. As the plane lands in Bangkok, an announcement is made that Inspector Zhang should make himself known to a member of the flight crew.  He and Sergeant Lee walk to the front of the plane where the Inspector is informed that there is a dead man covered with a blanket, and that he was a passenger on the flight. The flight attendant says that there is a lot of blood under the blanket.The Inspector makes sure that no passengers are allowed off the plane, and some are very unhappy and demand to get off, but Zhang will not allow it. He, Sergeant Lee, and the pilot and crew examine the dead man and determine that he was recently killed. Most of the people on the plane saw him boarding and alive at the beginning of the flight. In his typical investigating manner, Inspector Zhang questions everyone on the plane and allows certain ones to get off the plane, but keeps eight passengers on and continues to question while Sergeant Lee takes her notes and gathers names, seat numbers and passport information.Zhang loves a mystery and his favorite detective is Nero Wolfe who questions suspects. Zhang would rather use questioning as a method of solving a case rather than forensics or any other modern means of finding the perpetrator. Zhang always gets the right one and he figures out who murdered the man, who happens to be a Thai gangster. The man was killed on the airplane and Zhang figures out how it was done. He discovers the cause of death, but it would be impossible since the man was on a flight in the air when he was murdered, but murdered he was and while on the flight.This is a fun mystery story to read and also to gather more information on Zhang himself. There are about four or five of the Inspector Zhang mysteries out so far, and I'm looking forward to more in the series.  Great short stories and they don't take long to finish.