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Jake Needham
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THE UMBRELLA MAN (THE INSPECTOR SAMUEL TAY NOVELS Book 2) Kindle Edition

by Jake Needham (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 927 ratings
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The first bomb cracked the Hilton like an egg. The second gutted the lobby of the Marriott. And the third peeled the front off the Grand Hyatt. All American hotels. All destroyed. Hundreds are dead and thousands are injured.

Singapore is bleeding.

Inspector Samuel Tay is a senior inspector in Singapore CID, but he is frozen out of the investigation from the beginning. He has some serious enemies in Singapore’s Internal Security Department and he has even more enemies at the American embassy, so Tay is assigned routine cases while his colleagues join with the CIA and the FBI in a feverish search for the bombers.

Three days after the explosions, the smell of death still sticky in the city’s air, Tay is sent to a run-down apartment near the Malaysian border where two children have found the body of a Caucasian male with a broken neck. Tay feels an immediate connection with the dead man, although he’s certain he’s never seen him before.

As Tay searches the dead man’s past for clues to who he was and who his killer might be, Tay’s own past begins to give up its secrets. Then his long-dead father, a man he can barely remember, reaches out of the grave to point Tay to the truth about both the murdered man and the bombings.

That’s when the horror of Singapore’s destruction becomes a personal horror for Samuel Tay.

“JAKE NEEDHAM DEFTLY MORPHS 1930s SAM SPADE INTO INSPECTOR SAMUEL TAY, A WORLD-WEARY 21st CENTURY SINGAPORE HOMICIDE DETECTIVE” - Libris Reviews

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  1. Book 2 of 7
    THE INSPECTOR SAMUEL TAY NOVELS
  2. Print length
    376 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    January 16, 2014
  6. File size
    1859 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mr. Needham seems to know rather more than one ought about these things."- The Wall Street Journal

"Jake Needham is Michael Connelly with steamed rice."- The Bangkok Post

"Needham certainly knows where a few bodies are buried."- Asia Inc

"Jake Needham is Asia's most stylish and atmospheric writer of crime fiction." - The Singapore Straits Times

"Jake Needham has a knack for bringing intricate plots to life. His stories blur the line between fact and fiction and have a ripped from the headlines feel." - CNN

"Needham writes so you can smell the spicy street food mingling with the traffic jams, the sweat, and the garbage." - Libris Reviews

"Tight and atmospheric, Needham's novels are thrillers of the highest caliber, a perfect combination of suspense and wit." - The Malaysia Star

"No clichés. No BS. Thrillers written with a wry sense of irony in the mean-streets, fast-car, tough-talk tradition of Elmore Leonard." - The Edge Singapore

About the Author

JAKE NEEDHAM has twice been a finalist for the Barry Award for Best Original Paperback Mystery of the Year and as well as a finalist for the International Thriller Writers' award for Best Ebook Thriller of the Year.

He is an American screen and television writer who started writing crime novels when he realized he really didn't like movies and television all that much. Since then, he has published twelve popular international crime novels in two different series — The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels and The Jack Shepherd Novels — as well as the international bestseller, THE BIG MANGO.

"Jake Needham's the real deal," says Brendan DuBois, New York Times #1 bestselling author with James Patterson of BLOWBACK. "His characters are moral men and women struggling in an increasingly immoral world, his suspense and plotting are top-notch, and his writing is exquisitely fine. Highly, highly recommended."

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00ARITAC4
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Half Penny Ltd (Hong Kong) (January 16, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 16, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1859 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 376 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 927 ratings

About the author

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Jake Needham

Jake Needham

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JAKE NEEDHAM is a three-time nominee for the Barry Award for Best Original Paperback Mystery of the Year and has also been a nominee for the International Thriller Writers' award for Best Ebook Thriller of the Year.

He is an American screen and television writer who started writing crime novels when he realized he really didn't like movies and television all that much. Since then, he has published fifteen popular thrillers in two different series — The Jack Shepherd Novels and The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels — as well as the international bestseller, THE BIG MANGO.

"Jake Needham's the real deal," says Brendan DuBois, New York Times #1 bestselling author. "His characters are moral men and women struggling in an increasingly immoral world, his suspense and plotting are top-notch, and his writing is exquisitely fine. Highly, highly recommended."

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
927 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Deborah Wall McGraw
5.0 out of 5 stars A complicated Man
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2024
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Samuel Tay is a good policeman and a fussy man. He laughs at the fussy rules of Singapore but is really a good example of those very rules. A good and thoughtful story.
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Peter Gregoire
4.0 out of 5 stars Another quality read from Mr Needham.
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2013
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Another quality read from Mr Needham. A terrorist attack in Singapore drags our hero, Inspector Tay, into an investigation that leads him to confront unanswered questions about his past and the death of his father at the tail end of the Vietnam war. Needham has the sights and sounds of Singapore down pat, from the staccato rapid-fire accents to the hint of the sinister that seems to underlie the city-state's perfectly managed society. Tay himself is a great protagonist in the guise of the lone cop, who never plays by the book (which really sets him apart in a place like Singapore), smokes too much, exercises too little, clashes constantly with authority, but always gets his man in the end.

Perhaps the only criticism I have is with the ending, which seems to draw to a close too quickly and with a sense of unfinished business. Somehow this left me short of that full sense of satisfaction I have had from all of Mr Needham's books so far. But even with that, this was quality through and through.
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Gary Goodnow
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this series
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2020
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This is the second book in the series and is as good or better than the first. I think this Sam Tay Inspector character is here to stay on my read list. Set in Singapore and involving very interesting and somewhat likeable characters and very well developed plots, all the ingredients are present for a book that is hard to put down once started. And I should mention very good writing and character and plot development. I really think the Singapore setting gives it at least one additional star as this adds cultural and political aspects to the overall plot. Well done indeed.
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Manfred Rikkerhausen
5.0 out of 5 stars I'm an Inspector Tay fan
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2013
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Somehow Jake Needhams novels about Inspector Samuel Tay seem to me to be much better than his other stories. Why this should be is difficult to pin-point. As a reviewer I should be able to say why, but I can't right now. I'll have to get back to you on that. Perhaps its because the plots are set in Singapore, perhaps because the main character is of Chinese descent. Which actually is an important balancing point in multi-ethnic Singapore. I have to read more of these books and find out.

The Umbrella Man follows the normal well-trodden path of a dectective who is told by his superior not to take part in an investigation. Inspector Tay is given a simple case to handle - far away from the big investigation. And of course, within 15% of the book, we all know as readers, that Tay's line of investigation will ultimately zero in on the BIG investigation he was told to avoid. I won't spoil the plot for you. But even then its a good read. The dialogue and the humour of Samuel Tay give him a a very believable and likeable character. Naturally the CIA or some other agency are portrayed in various guises as the villains. But that seems to be standard fare these days.

Good book. Well screwed together. Enjoyable read. What more can you ask?
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Gary Severance
4.0 out of 5 stars Make or Break
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2013
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The Umbrella Man is the second novel in the Singapore Inspector Samuel Tay series by Jake Needham. Tay, a twenty-year veteran of the Special Investigations Section of the Singapore police CID, wakes one morning to the news that terrorist attacks have occurred at three of the US named hotels in his city, with explosions causing major damage at all three sites. Racing to the area to help, Tay is injured himself spending a short time in one of the hospitals crammed with victims of the terrorism. When he regains consciousness, Tay expects to recover and play a role in finding the terrorists and bringing them to justice. Instead, he is forbidden by his CID supervisor, from having anything to do with the case. Tay's activity involving the US embassy and the CIA in a prior case has gained him a reputation of being a loose cannon by the The Internal Security Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs, a government organization that supersedes the authority of the police in Singapore.

To get Tay out of the way, he is given a case involving the murder of an unidentified man in The Woodlands, a government planned housing project outside the main city. Tay has a feeling that the dead man is connected to the bombings though no one else sees it. As Tay and his subordinate Sergeant Kang investigate the crime, they uncover the identity of the dead man and discover a connection to Tay's father, dead now for 40 years. Approaching age 50, Tay discovers information about his father that changes his view of the past and forces him to re-examine his life.

The appeal of this second episode of the Tay series is that the reader learns more about the personal history of the inspector that explains his motivations, strengths, and weaknesses as a man and police official. I had a very different picture of Tay in this novel compared to the one I saw in volume 1 of the series,  THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE (An Inspector Samuel Tay Novel) . The Umbrella Man created more questions to understanding the complex character than it provided answers leaving me no choice but to read volume 3, when it is available. That is definitely something to look forward to. Tay is a hard man to like, but the more the reader knows about him, the more interesting he becomes. Readers should read volume 1 (with a better structure than this novel) first to get basic background on the inspector.
2 people found this helpful
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Norma Flynn
5.0 out of 5 stars Sam Tay is great
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2022
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Samuel Tay is a multi-layered detective. Good instincts but also quite human which makes him likeable. Intriguing story with faint threads that weave together well. Nice work. Can't wait for #3 - The Dead American. I'm hooked after the first two.
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ThreeLions
3.0 out of 5 stars OK for a quick read, nothing special.
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2013
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It's OK. Well written and a fast read (for me, on the pool right now, about 5 hrs.) Did I enjoy it? Partly. Would I read it again? No.
I did not care about Samuel at all and HOW he "solved" the case... well, he didn't solved anything but was pushed around by others to find things. Was a bit like a jump-and-run videogame.
Would I read the next one? Uncertain. I hope the next Jack Shepherd novel by Jake Needham is better and funnier.
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Top reviews from other countries

Old China Foot
5.0 out of 5 stars Always delivers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 21, 2023
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Personally I like my heroes less troubled than Inspector Tay but he is a well drawn character and Jake Needham writes perfectly nuanced prose and rollocking plots. Buy all books in the series for your Christmas stockings.
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Marty T
5.0 out of 5 stars Love This Series
Reviewed in Canada on July 5, 2020
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I plan to read the entire series as it is fascinating to learn about this part of the world while reading a great story with such well developed and quirky characters.
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Wilcockson
3.0 out of 5 stars Too far fetcged
Reviewed in France on April 16, 2021
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I found the story too far fetched and saw the critical connection too early in the book.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A right, riveting read!
Reviewed in Singapore on June 9, 2022
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Plot twists galore! Set in Singapore, I devoured it in Bali!
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GeeBee
5.0 out of 5 stars Another brilliant read!
Reviewed in Australia on August 14, 2017
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This one is just as good as the first in the series. Another gripping story, however in this book, Sam Tay's investigations lead him to look back into his past and and his relationship with his parents. We think we are getting to know Sam a little better but then again, Sam's unrelenting stubbornness and thinly veiled cynicism, simply leaves us bemused. Still, he is tenacious and he ultimately does what he does best, very, very well indeed. He surprised us all in the end!
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