A bit of light reading..

I had the pleasure of discovering the work of JG Farrell through his excellent Siege of Krishnapur, a fictionalised account of the life of a British community during the Indian Rebellion in the mid 19th century. His last published novel before a premature death was The Singapore Grip which "completed" his colonial trilogy - his first novel Troubles being situated in Ireland during its war of independence.
Singapore is a pure product of the British Empire, being founded by Sir Stamford Raffles as a trading post and gradually becoming thanks to its strategic location the most prominent of ports in South East Asia. It is therefore a great interest to read a novel relating the final years of effective British rule in Singapore.
The Singapore Grip relates the sorrows and travails on the British trading elite as well as recounting the siege of Singapore in 1941. It is obviously partly parody - some of the characters do seem very caricatural of English colonial types - but the novel does a very good job at creating an atmosphere of "the end of an era" as well as a historically accurate account of the siege, and the belief that the Japanese would never breach "Fortress Singapore".
As a resident a contemporary Singapore it is also interesting to recognize place names and even some businesses (Cold Storage!). A lot of these places have drastically changed obviously, the three Quays (Clarke, Boat and Robertson) now only harbour revellers in their many restaurants and bars and would never have been large enough for today's container ships.
A thoroughly good read, old boy! Recommended to even non Singapore residents.