Product Description Receiving a frantic call from his British University student daughter, corrupt Chinese Inspector Jian travels to rural England to confront the activities of a dangerous gang of human traffickers, an effort that is further complicated by the troubles of an indentured illegal immigrant. 15,000 first printing. From Publishers Weekly British author Lewis does a splendid job in this compelling thriller, his second novel (after Go), of dramatizing the challenges of strangers in a strange land. Inspector Ma Jian of the Chinese Public Security Bureau, whose wife died when the deeply flawed inspector was driving drunk, has let his only child, his daughter Wei Wei, attend Leeds University in England. When Jian receives a late-night phone call from a desperate-sounding Wei Wei that's interrupted, Jian travels to the U.K. At Leeds, Jian, who doesn't know English, learns that Wei Wei dropped out months before and her academic reports to him were lies. Eventually, he manages to ally himself with Ding Ming, an English-speaking illegal immigrant, whose wife was taken away by the human traffickers who got both of them to the U.K. A plot twist toward the end undermines the power of the book's earlier portions, but the corrupt and brutal Jian is an intriguing character many readers will want to see again. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Chinese Police Inspector Jian is used to running rampant over his own domain and knows how to exploit a corrupt system to his own advantage, which comes in handy when his wayward daughter phones from England, begging for help. Attaching himself to a trade delegation, Jian arrives in England only hours after his daughter calls, speaking zero English and having no compunction about following the rules. Jian’s exploits lead him from one Chinese restaurant to another as he searches for translators and clues to help him find his daughter’s abductor, Chinese gangster Black Fort. Lots of action, a couple of interesting twists, and short cliff-hanger chapters make this a fast-paced read. Jian’s unwilling sidekick, illegal immigrant Ding Ming, provides a comic touch (with his opinions of Westerners and his frequent bouts of histrionics), which lends a lighter tone to what would otherwise be a fairly dark tale. A good choice for crime collections. --Jessica Moyer About the Author Simon Lewis was born in Wales and grew up in Scotland. He is the author of the Rough Guides to China, Beijing, and Shanghai, and the backpacker novel Go, which he wrote in a village in the Himalayas. He spends half his time in Brixton, London, and the rest in Asia, mostly China and Japan.