Shortlisted for the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize for Fiction Finalist for the 2015 Epigram Books Fiction Prize In 1980s Singapore, a top civil servant is found dead. It appears to be suicide, by a cocktail of morphine, alcohol and Valium. But upon investigation by a CID inspector, who might not be what he seems, the family discover there may be far more sinister circumstances behind his death, reaching the uppermost echelons of government. Death of a Perm Sec exposes the dark heart of power politics, from the country’s tumultuous post-independence days to the socio-political landscape of the 1980s.