Taipei Night Market (Crime) Novel 3, 99 WAYS TO DIE, Ed Lin

The next "Taipei Night Market" novel, 99 WAYS TO DIE, comes out from Ed Lin and Soho Crime on October 9 -- and it's worth pre-ordering it now, to line up a reading session of enjoyment, lively suspense, and a taste of another world's other world.

Jing-nan, an amiable young man with a strong business drive, runs his dynamic and carefully balanced food stand in a sort of late-hours-only food court in Taipei, Taiwan. He's dead serious about the quality of food he serves, and ponders ways to add interest and excitement to the menu without losing the solid "Yelp" type following he already has among American tourists. His thinking on creating a vegetarian item from a new kind of fruit he finds on sale is downright intriguing (it almost sent me to the kitchen).

But what really counts with Jing-nan is loyalty to his friends. Even when his life is in danger.

So when his former classmate Peggy Lee phones him in tears, even though he has customers queuing at the stand, he's there for her -- although it's hard to understand what's up, between her sobs and the fact that her powerful father (who happens to be Jing-nan's landlord) could not possibly be the victim of a crime. Could he? Fortunately, the two other worked in the stand -- whose ethnicity will soon be significant! -- pick up on the crisis and give Jing-nan room to listen.

I fully turned my attention back to my old classmate. Her sobs had decreased in volume and frequency. Maybe she could talk now.

"Peggy," I said as I looked to the wall. "I want to make sure I heard you right. You said your father was kidnapped?"

"Yes," she managed to say. Peggy Lee, who would be nonchalant while standing on a cliff that was crumbling beneath her feet, was having difficulty verbalizing a single syllable. She must love her father more than anything.

And that, actually, could be a problem for Jing-nan if he gives in and tackles trying to rescue Peggy Lee's dad ... because no matter the risks involved, Peggy will feel they are justified, and won't care if Jing-nan's injured or killed in the process!

Fortunately, Jing-nan's girlfriend Nancy offers some counterweight to this tendency of Peggy's. But the kidnapping turns out to involve gangs, money, business ... and the politics of Taiwan, which holds a very uncomfortable position in terms of mainland China. And oh yes, since it's Peggy Lee's family at stake, this will be a media circus as well.

Lin's plotting has tightened over his career, and he's now adept in twisting his crime fiction in marvelous ways that incorporate almost as much humor (in mystery, we call it "capers") as the master Donald E. Westlake -- while winding into the plot the tensions of native, aboriginal, mainland, island, in lively and quickly grasped strands of added tension. Best of all are his characters: I wished Jing-nan and Nancy lived a lot closer (although I don't think I'd want to have a lot to do with Jing-nan's employees, whose skills extend beyond the kitchen in somewhat scary ways).

I enjoyed book 2 in this series, Incensed, almost as much. Although there's no need to read the earlier books before 99 WAYS TO DIE, it's a lot of fun to catch up with Lin's narratives, and I think I'll add number 1, Ghost Month, to my shelf, for the pleasure of such good reading.

Published by Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press, which continues to gather great additions to international crime fiction.

 PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

India, Tibet, Terrorism, in THE RATABAN BETRAYAL, Stephen Alter

It took almost three years for this Himalayan thriller to cross the Atlantic -- and it didn't even require translation. I'm not asking what happened. I'm just glad THE RATABAN BETRAYAL is finally releasing on January 5, 2016, in the United States. It erupted in Europe and even India in 2013, and probably stirred up reaction especially in author Stephen Alter's hometown, Mussoorie, India, where the thriller's action mostly takes place.

I particularly wanted to read THE RATABAN BETRAYAL because it has a blurb from Eliot Pattison, whose Chinese-occupied Tibet fiction (Inspector Shan series) is always high on my must-read list. But where Pattison's series is thoughtful and often mystical in its probing of Tibet "then and now," Alter's thriller rides with special ops teams and multinational espionage along one of the most dangerous border zones of the world: the region where India and China clash.

Action coalesces around one oldtime espionage master, Colonel Afridi, whose center of operations is in Mussorie, a "hill town" created during British rule of India and now a tourist location where agents of both the CIA and India's Research and Analysis Wing, RAW, cross paths and compete for information and survival. Alter propels two couples into the maelstrom of crisis around Afridi, although takes a while to sort out who's working for whom, and why.

Here's a sample from mid book:

Afridi was staring at her intently.

"That's a beautiful necklance you're wearing," he added, almost as an afterthought.

She fingered the amber beads self-consciously.

"Than you. I bought it in the market yesterday," Anna replied.

Afridi gave her a knowing smile, then reached across the table beside him and handed her a packet, wrapped in brown paper.

"You've got good taste, Miss Tagore," he said. "Now tell me what you make of this."

Oddly, this passage captures what frustrated me in THE RATABAN BETRAYAL: The contents of the package sound vital but never come back into the plot after this moment; Anna is supposed to be very tough but gets self-conscious; and Afridi's "knowing smile" over a piece of bazaar jewelry makes him a bit creepy. Overall, I found the action unevenly paced, the character decisions often abrupt, and Afridi himself -- who ought to be appealing, but really isn't -- not living up to what I'd hoped. Alter's an experienced author (15 books), and the terrain for this thriller is irresistible to me, but the only person I really wanted to connect with, a local named Jigme with significant ties to Afridi's past (and the action that took the Colonel's legs), kept vanishing; instead, rather unpleasant agents seemed unable to create any real teamwork, and in the end, I felt like everyone became tainted with betrayal. (Which may be the author's point, I know. But still.)

Yes, I'd pick up another from this author, set in the same region, but more cautiously and with more relaxed expectations. If you're collecting India, Tibet, and even China espionage, this belongs on your shelf. If you want to be moved in some way, though, there are better prospects elsewhere.

Ellie's in Danger in China, in DRAGON DAY, Lisa Brackmann

If only this were the "old days," when the death of Sherlock Holmes could be reversed by reader pressure ... If only DRAGON DAYS were not the finale of Lisa Brackmann's cutting-edge Ellie McEnroe series ... Then again, knowing before opening the book that this is The End gives extra sharpness to the start of this fast-paced crime thriller set in today's Shanghai and beyond. But omigosh, I don't want to say goodbye to Ellie, or "Yili" as she's called by her Chinese friends. Nor do I want those strands of suspense and adventure from Rock Paper Tiger and from Hour of the Rat to finally be knitted up.

But that's what California author Lisa Brackmann announced, along with Soho Crime, and that's that. If you haven't read the earlier two books, you'll still be able to enjoy every crazy moment of DRAGON DAY -- but if you have the time, dive into them first. It will add to the sense of danger that Ellie can't avoid, as her underground artist friend Lao Zhang announces he's coming back to the Beijing to confront the dangers that Ellie's been handling on his behalf. Well, she was only supposed to handle his artwork, the way an agent would. But the art and its sales are banned, the government and police of at least one country, probably two, are watching her every move (and email), and as a result, business hasn't been great.

Moreover, unscrupulous and powerful (and murderous) art collector Sidney Cao has Ellie in his debt -- he saved her life in an earlier book -- and there are tasks he wants her to tackle for him, in terms of his overprivileged and even more unscrupulous grown children. Tasks that force her into uneasy and unpleasant collusion with the same secret police who keep trying to force her to betray Lao Zhang. Sheesh!

Actually, Ellie's a lot more, umm, direct in her language. An Iraq War vet with lasting pain and a Percocet habit to go with it, she's beyond blunt. Plus, she's in something suspiciously like an intimate relationship with an undercover Chinese cop. Oops. She nicknamed him Creepy John a long time ago, but he's a lot more supportive of her than, say, her mom who's mostly living with her. Maybe that's because he knows what's going on:

"Maybe I can find out what they want from Zhang Jianli, what they say he did," John says, and he's making an effort to sound calm. Like it's no big deal. "He's just an artist. Maybe it isn't so bad."

I  don't know who he's trying to convince: me or himself.

"It doesn't matter what he did." Suddenly I'm so tired that I can't even hold my head up anymore. "It's whatever they want it to be, right?"

Because if there's anything I've learned, it's that sometimes there's no reason for any of it. Sometimes it's just wrong place, wrong time. Somebody with power gets a bug up his a**. Like the musical where the hungry guy steals the loaf of bread and the cop gets the hard-on of all hard-ons over it.

John rests his hand on mine, just for a moment, then pulls it away, like he's embarrassed.

"Try not to worry, Yili."

Right.

If that's too strong for you, the rest of the book won't be a good fit, as Sidney Cao's demands force Yili into situations full of sexual perversion (which thank goodness she only has to witness), family menace, and more than one mutilated body of an otherwise nice person. But if you enjoy noir, and the grim politics of global power, interspersed with humor and even some tenderness, well, DRAGON DAY was released today -- there's a copy waiting for you. (I strongly suggest getting all three in this series; it will be three great rides.)

Brackmann's quirky preface in Ellie's voice, reminding us that she was born in a year of the sheep (in the Chinese zodiac) but that China itself is nearly synonymous with dragons -- could there be a dragon in the sheep, or a sheep inside the dragon? -- is fair warning of the knotted problems ahead, and the potential for explosion as Lao Zhang's reappearance comes closer.

And it's worth guessing whether the book will end with dragon fire or sheep warmth.

Now that I have Ellie McEnroe permanently under my skin, I confess I'm very curious about Brackmann's next direction. Knowing how the publishing world works, I guess it will be about six months until hints emerge. Guess I have time to re-read the series, before that happens!

Colin Cotterill's 10th Dr. Siri Paibun Mystery, SIX AND A HALF DEADLY SINS

Ever notice how hard it can be to relax, as summer arrives? In theory, it's playtime, and vacation time, and let's-go-the-beach time ... but in practice, it's also yard-care season, clean-out-the-closet time, give rides to family members no longer in school time, and time to learn new recipes for the grill.

That's why it is entirely necessary to grab the newest Colin Cotterill mystery, the tenth in the Laos-based series featuring the aging Dr Siri Paibun and his wise and tough wife, Madame Daeng. Dr. Siri is officially retired now, and the office where he's exhibited his government-mandated coroner's skills is closed. But a package has arrived, and he's puzzling over its contents with his friend Comrade Civilai Songsawat -- also retired, at least in theory. In fact, the pair should be just "two old men sitting on a log" beside the Mekhong River, taking things easy. But the package contained a traditional Lao skirt, or pha sin, with a severed finger sewn into the hem, which really can't be ignored easily.

"Do you suppose it might have belonged to the weaver?" asked Civilai. "Some loom accident?"

"What?" said Siri. "You mean she was so engrossed in her skirt-making that she didn't notice she'd sewn her own finger into the hem? Got home that evening, and her husband says, 'Hey, where's your finger?' And she looks down to find it gone and says, 'Hm. I must have inadvertently sewn it into one of the skirts'?"

Well, no. Obviously. And as Civilai reminds to his friend, "Sarcasm is like throwing a stick at your enemy when you've run out of bullets."

Fortunately, Dr. Siri's wife, Madame Daeng, along with her sometimes mysterious past and her esteemed skills in noodles, knows something about these traditional weavings, and can point the two men north. In fact, she even decides to travel with her husband, which turns out to be a very wise choice.

The journey to investigate the sin, however, is at least as complicated as the puzzle of the finger in the skirt hem. In fact, a map at the front of the mystery, before the tale begins, gives fair warning. Siri -- and who knows who else, at this point? -- is headed for a scenic and politically uncomfortable tour of northern Laos. Expect trouble ahead, because Cotterill has already said bluntly in the first paragraph that this season (December 1978) is also the time when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, a neighbor of Laos. If you're good at geography, or lived through the Vietnam war, you know China is involved in all these tilting power struggles, too. And Dr. Siri has never become a model citizen under the Chinese-led rule of his little nation anyway. Even with Madame Daeng at his side, he's sure to get into trouble.

I should have guessed from the chapter titles, but it took me a while to connect the book title with the goings-on (after all, I was watching for why it wasn't "seven deadly sins," a true red herring). To be honest, for a while, I wasn't trying to figure out things -- Cotterill's storytelling is so fluid and his characters' interactions are so entertaining that I just gave in, following the story and not trying to solve the crime, eager for the next twist of the plot.

Now look back at the start of this review -- the part about not managing to relax in the season that's supposed to be all about relaxing. This is the reason it's essential to pick up a copy of Cotterill's SIX AND A HALF DEADLY SINS. It's the fun part of the season, and it will remind you of why you wanted to read an enjoyable book (instead of just a challenging one, or one on the list of cultural must-reads, or any of that). This is the book that makes reading into a summer pleasure again!

It's from Soho Crime (of course!) and feels like a true sibling to Tim Hallinan's modern-day Thailand series (warmth and humor), a cousin to Martin Limón's Korean ones (friends facing risks together), and an uncle to Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands investigations (paying attention to the politics will help you solve the case at about the same time that the protagonist) -- all of them Soho series.

But if you can only pick one to start your vacation (or pretend you can have one!), this is the one. For extra fun, visit Cotterill's website, too, and jump through the hoops of his graphic jests, en route to a pithy description of his newest book here.

World War I Espionage from David Downing: JACK OF SPIES, Compelling New Series

David Downing's well-established espionage series set in Berlin during the Second World War wrapped up after six books, reaching the end of the war and a more settled situation for John Russell, reluctant spy finally able to settle with his family in a safe place. The series end didn't surprise readers, but it certainly brought a sense of loss.

Fortunately, Downing's opened a new series, this time opening in 1913, before the domino-game of catastrophes that would engage so many nations that it would become the first "world" war -- the Great War, the war to end all wars (ah, if only). In a sweep of geography and exhilaration that an elegant man of the time could encompass, Downing's quick-paced adventure for protagonist Jack McColl begins in a German-occupied section of China (did you know? I didn't!) and roars across the Pacific to San Francisco, then to Chicago, New York and New Jersey (the mills of Paterson!), and at last across another ocean to Ireland, that hotbed of rebellion and skilled revolutionaries.

Those who already know Downing's craft realize his deft hand with romantic passion and delicately portrayed merging of lust and love -- and like the "Station" series (his Berlin one), JACK OF SPIES includes a serious affair of the heart: Jack McColl's quick infatuation with an Irish-descent adventuress, Caitlin Hanley, turns out to be far deeper than a traveler's passion. But Caitlin has her own motives and powerful allies, and her motives don't align with John's; how long can the relationship survive their opposite loyalties and missions?

What I especially appreciate about Downing's writing is his willingness to admit that spies have feelings, often uncomfortable and distressing and even disabling, brought about both by the situations of hidden lives and danger, and their own adaptive rootlessness. Here's a bit from JACK OF SPIES as Jack McColl deals with the way deaths keep piling up around him, not just in war-poised China but even among the hills of San Francisco:

As he watched the hills of San Francisco draw ever closer from the bow of the ferry, McColl tried to shake off the numbness that seemed in danger of immobilizing him. Jatish was dead, and that was that -- he had no time to mourn a man he'd known for only an hour. ...

He'd been shown how ruthless the enemy was and he would have to be more vigilant. Disembarking, he scanned the waiting travelers with more concern than usual, double-checking several faces that instinct told him were innocent. In this job, he realized, paranoia could become second nature.

Although Downing is sometimes compared with that master of British spy fiction, John Le Carré, the literary link should be with Alan Furst, who also demonstrates the compelling process by which an ordinary person in an uneasy time can become a collaborator in the secret world of political maneuvers that demand nations and armies to follow. His mood isn't as pervasively dark as Furst's, yet the costs and deaths add up steadily, and by the end of JACK OF SPIES, a reader may be attentively waiting for more than the next book -- one waits for the inevitable conflict, whose roots are clearly exposed as McColl continues to accept his risky assignments.

Brought to us by Soho Crime ... wonder how many books the Great War will spin into, as Jack McColl is thrust into examining the loyalties and conflicts of the people and nations around him?

Calendar Alert: Eliot Pattison, Sunday July 28, 7 pm at Kingdom Books

Eliot Pattison must have an amazing work ethic: He writes three mystery series, while also maintaining his career as an international attorney. How does he do it? What's next for this much-acclaimed but private author?

Find out in a rare conversation with Pattison, here at Kingdom Books, on Sunday July 28 at 7 pm. We'll have copies of both of his newest books -- Mandarin Gate (an Inspector Shan mystery, set in Chinese-occupied Tibet) and Original Death (third in the Bone Rattler series, set in Colonial America with both Scottish and Native American components) -- but in limited numbers, so please contact Dave (802-751-8374 and dknel at charter.net) if you'd like to reserve copies.

We also have many of Pattison's earlier books; click here to see the list.

HOUR OF THE RAT, Lisa Brackmann: Suspense and Danger in the Real China

RELEASED TODAY!

So, you're reading international crime fiction, right? And you definitely can picture the art, canals, and food (even almost smell it) in Donna Leon's Venice mysteries; you're getting worried about gray-sky days because in the Scandinavian mysteries they mean more killings and more depression; and you can't decide which African crime fiction you like better, the almost cozy ones by Alexander McCall Smith or the edgy and dangerous ones by Jassy Mackenzie.

So, what are you going to do about China?

I promise, I don't usually talk or write like that -- but Ellie McEnroe, age 27 and a long-term injured Iraq War veteran living in China, definitely does. Lisa Brackmann's adventurous American in Beijing keeps getting into controversy, though, and in modern China, mouthy Americans are mostly not welcome. Americans who support, hide, and have contact with anti-government artists are even more not welcome. Even with her connections, and now her mom living with her, Ellie is in trouble.

Readers who caught Brackmann's first Ellie McEnroe title, ROCK PAPER TIGER (2010), already know Ellie's war wound has left her vulnerable to pain-easing drugs, and her refusal to play things safe has set her against the Chinese government when it chases after her artist friends. Especially intriguing is the way Ellie finds herself caught up simultaneously in an online gaming world that has odd connections to who she's seeking and who's chasing her. (Shades of William Gibson, really.)

HOUR OF THE RAT takes Ellie out of Beijing -- she's burning out in a lot of ways, and it's time to get to other locations. The opening scene, an art opening event, captures her situation:

Guests and artists mill around, drinking Yanjing beer and eating yangrouchuanr, which normally I'd be all over, but the meat on these is so small and gristly that I wonder if it's actually mutton and not dog instead. Or rat.

I was born in the Year of the Rat, and eating my birth animal seems like it would be bad luck. So I stick to the beer.

"Why are we here, again?" I ask.

"I'd heard good things about the painter," Harrison says, flicking his hazel eyes at one of hte giat canvases, one where a fat naked guy whose face is done up in Peking Opera makeup lies sprawled across a red Ferrari, his guts spilling out of his sliced-open stomach. ... "I agree with you, it's disappointing."

... He's my boss, sort of.

I manage the work of a Chinese artist. An important one. Which is pretty funny, considering that I know f***-all about art. Which is why, I guess, Harrison keeps trying to get me to learn.

In addition to this sense of burnout, two nearly irresistible forces are on Ellie's case: (1) Somebody keeps trying to purchase her client's art, which oddly enough is not a good thing because he's in danger with the government and any sale will bring people after him right now; and (2) Ellie's mom, who seems to have run away from her American life, is trying to direct Ellie's life instead (while bringing her own Chinese boyfriend into the mix).

But when Ellie goes on the run -- with her mother and said BF in tow -- a third and maybe even a fourth factor (both political/police related) press into her life. And the places she ends up running to and through are some of the scariest in modern China, because they are the most heavily polluted and poisoned and -- you knew this was coming -- doggedly made invisible by the government.

Brackmann, musing on how she developed HOUR OF THE RAT, says, "Many in the West tend to think of Chinese as passive and uninvolved when it comes to politics, and while it’s true that the CCP does not look kindly upon activities that threaten its monopoly on power, Chinese people have been very vocal when it comes to environmental issues. Many of the approximately 180,000 “mass incidents” in China last year were provoked by pollution or other environmental concerns. Tens of thousands of people have protested polluting factories in places like Ningbo and Xiamen. These are issues that unite poor peasant farmers and well-to-do urban dwellers alike."

In terms of Ellie's life, that means there are people who may give her some support and information as she tries to escape whoever is chasing and threatening her and the ties to these polluted places. But it also means nobody around her can afford to go on the record.

Brackmann's crime fiction is exhilarating and compelling, and I had no regrets about trading in my preconceptions about China, to absorb both the current issues and the clear passion that Ellie has for the place and its diversity. Readers don't need to read Rock Paper Tiger first, but -- why not get both books for double enjoyment? Brackmann is definitely sustaining the strong narrative voice and deft weaving of plot and character that brought her huge praise for the first Ellie McEnroe adventure, and I hope she's planning more. I'm in for this.

More from Brackmann, here: http://www.lisabrackmann.com/books/hour-of-the-rat

Our review of Rock Paper Tiger, here: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2010/07/when-global-gets-dangerous-lisa.html

And if you've been reading this while also trying to remember whether you were born in a year of the rat, or dragon, or horse ... check here: http://www.ofesite.com/spirit/chinese/animal2.htm