UTube: Inspector Mislan and the Emancipatist Conspiracy

A rape case drives Noor’s excellent third Malaysian procedural starring Insp. Mislan Latif of Kuala Lumpur’s Special Investigation Unit (after DUKE: Inspector Mislan and the Expressway Murders). The victim, marketing v-p Era Amilia Zabidin, was sexually assaulted in her apartment by two masked men, one of whom videotaped the crime. After a video of her degradation is posted on UTube, Zabidin jumps to her death from her balcony to avoid further humiliation. Zabidin’s parents want the men responsible charged with murder. Meanwhile, Mislan gets a traditional homicide to probe after a second young woman, banker Julie Maulana, is raped in the same way, and her roommate’s throat is slit. The assailants left no forensic clues, and Mislan’s search for them is complicated by an adversarial supervisor’s interference. Noor, himself a veteran of the Malaysian police force, makes the plot twists plausible and his characters true to life. This gritty series merits a long run. (July)