Presents the life of a ten-year-old boy and his family in Singapore, describing his home and school activities and discussing the history, geography, ethnic composition, languages, culture, and other aspects of his county.

"Mirza, a secretive neighbour of the Chens in Japanese Occupied Singapore, is a known collaborator and blackmailer. So when he is murdered in his garden, clutching a branch of mimosa, the suspects include local acquaintances, Japanese officials - and his own daughters. Su Lin's Uncle Chen is among those rounded up by the Japanese as reprisal. Hideki Tagawa, a former spy expelled by police officer Le Froy and a power in the new regime, offers Su Lin her uncle's life in exchange for using her fluency in languages and knowledge of locals to find the real killer. Su Lin soon discovers Hideki has an ulterior motive. Friends, enemies and even the victim are not what they seem. There is more at stake here than one man's life. Su Lin must find out who killed Mirza and why, before Le Froy and other former colleagues detained or working with the resistance suffer the consequences of Mirza's last secret."--Publisher description.

"In just five months, from the airstrikes on Pearl Harbor to the fall of Corregidor, the Empire of Japan took prisoner more than 140,000 Allied servicemen and 130,000 civilians from a dozen different countries. In the ensuing chaos, all of them had to find a way to live -- or die -- in hundreds of camps spread across thousands of miles, from Manchuria to Manila, from Singapore to Nagasaki. Forty percent of American servicemen did not survive, and more Australians died in captivity than were killed in combat. Based on archives and interviews in eight countries and five languages, Prisoners of the Empire shows not just how POWs survived, but why they had to endure such a terrible ordeal"--