Singapore Sapphire by A. M. Stuart

Harriet Gordon has gone to live with her brother in Singapore.  Her husband and son died from typhus and she wants to start over.  She also teaches at her brother's school and is trying to do some secretarial work on the side.  When her typewriter at work gives up, she goes back to the home of the man she's using her secretarial skills for.  She finds her typewriter where she left it and the man she was working is dead on the floor in the same room...

Berkley and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published August 6th.

This is a well written historical mystery.  The mystery is complicated.  People are not what they seem.  Greed is the driving factor in this death and the ones to come.

Someone is making fake Buddhas that look authentic, someone has stolen rubies and a large sapphire during mining operations and now they are cashing them in, a bit at a time in another location.  As people become redundent, they become dead.  

Harriet gets involved in the investigation, mostly because a young boy's father is involved.  The smugglers are killers and offer no one any sympathy.  Will the cops come in time to save her or will Harriet die, too?