I flew through Soho Press's The Fat Man's Daughter this weekend. It was perfect warm weather reading; and if you like your mysteries of the historical kind then this a rare treat. I don't know of other titles set in pre WW2 China and Hong Kong, just as the Japanese invasion was about to takeoff. At one point the heroine, Leah, disembarks from a train in Nanking and it is 1937. Any historian will tell you that things are about to take a horrific turn in this part of the world (reminder yet again that I must must must read The Rape of Nanking) and Leah is very nearly caught up in the tragedy. But the story is much more than just Nanking and the Japanese, it is also all about smugglers and political opportunists and the Soviets and Chinese Nationalists and even a bit of American spying. Leah is in it because she has to be; she's been threatened after her father's sudden death (he is already gone when the book begins) and is shocked by sudden revelations about her life and status. In a moment she finds herself falling victim to other people, many other people, who all have secret plans of their own. The question is whether she will survive the journey she must take and along the way, just what she is willing to do in order to survive.
There are a few moments in the story that were a little rocky - the parts about her love or need for love didn't always ring true with the rest of the story and I'm not sure that it needed to be written that way. (I couldn't help but think that the protagonist was a young man then it would be sex in the story and not convenient romance) but the politics and setting are great and move the story along at a breakneck pace. I thought it was very very good (I read it in two days after all) and I look forward to reviewing it later this summer.
