Ava is in Shanghai for the
launch of the PÖ clothing line. She has invited Xu, and over the course of the
glitzy event and a late-night dinner, she detects a certain hesitancy in him.
He confides that the Tsai family, headed by Tsai Lian, the governor of Jiangsu
Province and a “princeling” — he is the son of a general who was on the Long
March with Mao and a member of China’s power elite — is trying to force him and
his Triad organization back into the drug business. Xu is already paying
millions of dollars a year to various Tsai businesses, but the family wants
more and thinks the new venture can deliver it. Xu believes this move would
lead to his eventual destruction and feels he has nowhere to turn. If he
opposes them, they will crush him. If he goes along with them, he thinks that
inevitably the police and military will hunt him down. Ava sets out
to help Xu deter the Tsai family. As she digs into the breadth and depth of the
family’s wealth and corruption, she gets caught up in a huge tangled web,
extending all the way to the U.S. and the U.K., where it reaches the top
echelons of political power.
The Princeling of Nanjing
(International Intrigue)
“An Ava Lee Novel”
By Ian Hamilton
House of Anansi Press
ISBN #978-1487001605
Price 10.84
496 Pages
Rating 5-Stars
“A Smooth Page Turner.”
Ava
Lee is with May Ling and Amanda, her partners in the Three Sisters business in
Shanghai, as they start their clothing business. Their benefactor, Xu is on
hand, but he reveals that a powerful Chinese family is forcing him into the
drug business, and they won’t take no for an answer. He is truly between a rock
and a hard spot. Drugs are a business he doesn’t want in, and if he says no
they could destroy him. Although he doesn’t ask Ava for help, she feels
obligated to look into the family’s financial dealings. What she finds is proof
of bribes and illegal money laundering, something that might look bad within
the other Chinese power structures. She begins following the money, and things
get more complicated when the head of the family discovers who is doing it.
This
is the 8th Ava Lee novel, and the writing continues to be smooth and
topnotch. The story is character driven, and the characters actually become
part of the reader. We feel a kinship to Ava, May Ling, Amanda, Xu, Sonny,
Suen, and everyone involved. They are like our own family. Highly recommended.
Tom Johnson
Author of THE MAN IN THE BLACK FEDORA
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