99 Ways to Die

Starred review from August 27, 2018
At the start of Lin’s stellar third Taipei Night Market novel (after 2016’s Incensed), Jing-nan Chen, who “makes the best skewers and stews in the Shilin Night Market,” receives a distress call from high school classmate Peggy Lee. Peggy’s wealthy businessman father, Tommy Lee Tong-ming, “who controlled some of the most powerful tax-dodging entities in Taiwan” and is also Jing-nan’s landlord in the market, has been brazenly kidnapped at a banquet. Since a police escort was present, the Taipei PD is desperate to keep their embarrassing security lapse private. Peggy asks Jing-nan to get involved after the kidnappers demand the design for a “power-efficient mobile chip” that they insist is in her father’s files, despite her ignorance of its existence. Jing-nan reluctantly agrees to reach out to a relative with underworld connections as well as to his girlfriend’s former lover, a tech executive imprisoned for bribery who might know the design’s location. Jing-nan has three days to come up with results before the kidnappers’ deadline expires. Lin effortlessly blends humor, plausible plot twists, and the politics and economics of contemporary Taiwan. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit.

Narrator Ewan Chung gives a talented performance of the many characters that appear in this audiobook. Jing-nan is an antihero who prefers owning a night cart restaurant in Taipei to owning a brick-and-mortar business with never-ending responsibilities. The billionaire father of Jing-nan's childhood friend, Peggy Lee, has been kidnapped, not for money, but for a computer chip the kidnappers can sell in China. Jing-nan knows danger when he sees it, but Peggy Lee secures his help by blackmailing him. Chung understands the nuances of the characters and keeps them distinct. He demonstrates a stand-up comic's instincts with the humor laced throughout the story. Overall, his presentation imposes balance on this sometimes uneven but unique mystery. E.E.S. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine