The Water Rat of Wanchai

March 10, 2014
American fans of Ava Lee, a Toronto-based forensic accountant who specializes in finding and recovering missing money, will welcome Hamilton’s first in the series, whose publication in the U.S. follows that of the fourth entry, 2013’s The Red Pole of Macau. When her Chinese business partner, Uncle, asks her to help a friend’s nephew, who has lost $5 million to an unscrupulous seafood distributor, Ava embarks on a multicountry quest to track the funds. She travels to Hong Kong, where the deal originated, then follows the money trail to Bangkok and Georgetown, Guyana. In the seedy South American capital, she bribes Captain Robbins—the de facto power behind the government, military, law enforcement, and the criminal underworld—to help her reclaim the money from Jackson Seto, who masterminded the seafood scam. Despite a somewhat anticlimactic ending, this is an enjoyable romp with a feisty, ingenious heroine whose lethal martial arts skills are as formidable as her keen mind. Agent: Gillian Fizet, House of Anansi (Canada).

May 1, 2014

Chinese Canadian Ava Lee, forensic accountant, chafes at being office bound. She and her business partner, "Uncle," instead find Mission Impossible-style assignments. They rescue business owners who, through careless or naive transactions, have been scammed. (Incidentally, getting large sums of money back to their rightful owners might require somewhat illegal maneuvers by Lee.) In this outing, Ava must recover several million dollars that went missing through an international seafood operation. Moving globally, she homes in on her target when she discovers the ringleader is holed up in Guyana, a country not conducive to a smooth operation. But Ava's quick thinking helps her emerge victorious. VERDICT Although other titles in this Canadian run (The Disciple of Las Vegas: The Wild Beasts of Wuhan; The Red Pole of Macau) have been released here, fans won't want to miss this series launch. Ava Lee is a must add. Spoiler alert: it's a crime novel, not a murder mystery, geared for readers who savor elaborate traps meant to ensnare bad guys with abundant action involved. While not as comedic as Colin Cotterill's Jimm Juree series, it carries similar appeal with a strong Asian female lead and large ensemble cast. [The Wild Beasts of Wuhan is a finalist in the Lesbian Mystery category of the 2014 Lambda Literary Awards.--Ed.]

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014
This is the eighth in the Ava Lee series, each novel of which offers a heady blend of exotic locales, foodie tips, biff-boff action, and a heroine with keen deduction, considerable skills in the martial art of bak mei, and a well-connected mentor. Ava is Chinese Canadian, based in Toronto, and works as a forensic accountant. She uses her skills in both accounting and interviewing to trace and retrieve money that has gone missing or has strayed from its rightful owners. She is sort of a cross between James Bond and Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski. The latest is a prequel to the other novels, showing the roots of Ava Lee's international work at the behest of her Uncle (in the Chinese sense of a nonrelated mentor), who asks Ava to find $5 million for the nephew of a friend. Others are after the money, too, of course, and the action zooms from Toronto to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Guyana, and the British Virgin Islands, from five-star hotels to back alleys. Terrific fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)