The Red Pole of Macau

September 30, 2013
In Hamilton’s subpar fourth Ava Lee novel (after 2013’s The Wild Beasts of Wuhan), Ava’s eldest half-brother, Michael, who lives in Hong Kong, and his business partner, Simon To, have sunk a mostly borrowed $20 million into a Macau shopping center project that seems increasingly like a scam—and the developers are trying to strong-arm them into investing even more. Unless Ava can manage to extricate them, the financial security of her entire extended family could be at risk. Then Simon gets kidnapped. Petite Chinese-Canadian Ava shifts seamlessly from number cruncher to ninja, meticulously planning a rescue operation with the help of the extensive shadow network of Uncle, her once-Triad-linked business partner. Diluting the suspense somewhat is the distracting injection of Chinese power broker/cypher May Ling Wong from the previous book, as well as far too much description of cuisine and couture. Hopefully, Ava will return to form in her next outing. Agent: Gillian Fizet, House of Anansi (Canada).