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The skyrocketing price puts cars firmly out of reach of most middle-class Singaporeans, putting a dent in what sociologist Tan Ern Ser said was the "Singapore Dream" of upward social mobility - having cash, a condominium and a car.

Ern is constantly stepping out of the fictional frame in an exaggerated effort to “play fair” with the reader, much as the Golden Age mystery writers he reveres mostly did.

As Ern cheekily boasts in the novel’s Prologue: “Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once.”

The opening of the novel finds Ern driving to Sky Lodge, an isolated Australian ski resort, for a dreaded family reunion.

The impetus for the reunion is the release of Ern’s brother, Michael, from prison after killing a man.