Ian Hamilton (11) (1946–)

I read the first book in this series ‘The Water Rat Of Wanchai’ a.k.a. ‘The Deadly Touch Of The Tigress’ (2011) a year ago. It stuck with me, mostly because it was so hard to label. Thriller/Travelogue/Pan-Asian mashup. I had my doubts about a book about a Chinese woman written by a white European man. I had bigger doubts about combining ‘Thriller’ and ‘Accountant’. To my surprise it worked so I decided to try the second book ‘The Disciple Of Las Vegas‘.

The book has a show more slow low-key start with background explanations about the world that Ava Lee inhabits, her relationship with her business partner, Uncle Chow, and the dangerous nature of her next client. Although it was slow, it wasn't tedious, just matter-of-fact, which is an achievement as what Ava Lee does is unusual, complicated and borderline criminal. The introduction meant that you didn't have to have read the first book to enjoy this one, although I'd recommend reading it so that you have a better understanding of who Ava is. She's easy to underestimate and she uses that to her advantage.

Surprisingly for a thriller, the novel stayed low key as Ava travelled the world met the (unpleasant, impolite, rich and very dangerous) client and then went on the hunt to recover $50m of missing money that, in the space of a few days took her on tour around the world from Canda to Manila, Las Vegas and London. Her investigation took her deep into the world of online poker and the casinos of Las Vegas.

To add to the fun, Ava Lee is also being pursued. A criminal she rather forcefully recovered some money from has put a hit out on her. UncleChow is trying to get it cancelled but, in the meantime, Ava is at risk.

Ava's pursuit of the stolen money was relentless, sometimes violent but always calm. I found watching her surprisingly compelling and just a little chilling. Ava is always polite and never gives way to fits of temper. I didn't realise how far I'd started to accept Ava's methods as reasonable and even civilised by comparison to the people she was working for and recovering money from until she decided that circumstances required her to change tactics and, with the help of two of Uncle's men, she set about torturing the men who stole the money. There was no malice and no pleasure in the violence. It was just business. Which actually made it feel worse.

Even so, I found myself on Ava's side, especially when she came into conflict with a corrupt, racist, misogynistic Bristish Minister. I'm fairly sure I know who he was based on and I enjoyed watching Ava getting the better of him.

Despite the violence, the Ava Lee novels work for me as a particular kind of comfort read so I went looking the third book. I found that the novels have been bundled into sets of three, starting with book three, so I picked up a bundle to sit on my TBR for the next time I'm looking for a slightly off-centre, relaxing, unchallenging read. show less

I stumbled onto Ian Hamilton's books after a Canadian reviewer who I follow said that the Ava Lee books and the Uncle Chow Tung books were 'zero-risk' reads that she knew she would always enjoy. As the Uncle Chow Tung books are a spin-off from the Ava Lee series, I decided to start with the first Ava Lee book, 'The Water Rat Of Wanchai' (released in the UK under the awful title of 'The Deadly Touch Of The Tigress'). Published in 2011, it won the Best First Novel Arthur Ellis Award (now known show more as the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence).

As soon as I started it, I knew I was in for a treat. This was a book about a forensic accountant that felt both credible AND exciting. That's not an easy thing to achieve.

It may be an odd thing to say about a thriller but I found the start of the book, when Ava Lee was uncovering the scam and following the money, relaxing. I enjoyed slipping into the international business world of the Chinese diaspora. It's a world that I've only seen from the fringes but what I have seen made Ian Hamilton's descriptions feel solid and believable.

I loved the small insights into Chinese culture, seen through the eyes of Ava Lee, a Chinese Canadian woman who is as comfortable doing business in Hong Kong, Bangkok or Singapore as she is in Toronto, Seattle or New York.

Ava is a wonderful creation. On first meeting, she seems harmless: small, quiet, smart without being showy, conservatively dressed, scrupulously polite and effortlessly attractive. It takes a while for people to realize that she is a powerful woman who is focused, persistent, talented, physically dangerous and a ruthless risk-taker who will do whatever it takes to win. I enjoyed watching her work her solve problems, especially when the problem-solving involved figuring out how to overcome people more powerful than she is.

Forensic accounting doesn't sound like a risky business but when the task is to recover five million dollars from a criminal who has taken refuge in a failed State in South America where he has bought himself protection from powerful men, unconventional approaches are needed, dangerous alliances have to be made, deception is the preferred strategy and violence is always a tactical option.

The tension in the last twenty per cent of the book was palpable and had a heist movie feel to it. Ava was in danger and was no longer in control of events. I couldn't see how she was going to get out of the mess she was in but part of my enjoyment came from my confidence that she'd come up with something clever and risky that I hadn't thought of.

I want to spend more time following Ava around so I was happy to see that there are another fifteen books in the series. I'll be reading the second book, 'The Disciple Of Las Vegas', next month. show less

It would not surprise me to learn that Ian Hamilton’s books have inspired pilgrimages to Toronto’s vaunted houses of dim sum, as Hamilton is specific about locales and the particular delicacies to be enjoyed in each. Hamilton has a track record now with his sixth novel in the series, and we believe him when he talks about food, clothes, and hotels. This middle-aged white male author is merely channeling his inner young, Chinese, lesbian side and, to judge from reviews, little is as show more thrilling to the reading public.

The seeds of change in Ian Hamilton’s Ava Lee series are coming to fruition. One of the more interesting things about this series is that the central characters are actually impacted by the world, and they must decide how to react. They encounter difficult challenges and, like most of us in the reading audience, succeed brilliantly at times in turning events to their advantage, and less well at other times. In this sixth installment of the Ava Lee series we begin to see a harder, more expedient Ava, who can be generous or ruthless but who is always calculating.

Some reviews I have seen mention that Ava shows a softer side of herself when with her “Uncle”, Chow Tung. Perhaps. I would argue that he is more family to her than her real family, which is a huge, intercontinental affair. Ava finds herself modeling her own decisions on his, assigning unequivocal “trust” to some people while all the while finely slicing the information they are privy to about her own life. Her lover, Maria, is aware of only the outlines of Ava’s professional life: the constant, sudden travel, the large, dispersed family connections, great wealth. Ava’s business partners May Ling and Amanda are aware of these things and a few more slices of Ava’s life. Only Uncle knew Ava’s full story: her doubts, her failings, her control, or lack of it.

The story takes a leap, in my mind at least, at the end of this episode to something quite different. We now have Ava explicitly aligned with Chinese mainland gangs that extend their reach throughout Asia. In the past, these links were shadowy background that passed through an enigmatic “Uncle” but with his passing, Ava is unquestionably front and center in the web of triad power. It is difficult to imagine where this might take us, though the next title in the series, due to be published January 2015, is called The King of Shanghai.

As I mentioned in an earlier review, Hamilton’s writing is strong, clever, and involving. He writes two scenes in this episode that illustrate masterful constructs of Chinese social society: the opening Hong Kong wedding and the closing funeral. If nothing else, these two events and Hamilton’s sociological exegesis of them are fascinating enough, but we have skin in the game. We are sad May Ling and her husband had to miss the eight-course wedding banquet and we marvel at Ava’s renting an entire restaurant for the mourners at Chow Tung’s funeral.

But just the characters in Hamilton’s series change in response to their environment, my own attitude towards Ava is shifting: from sympathy and support to a certain wariness. She is making choices now that make me question who she will become, where she will end up. If I sense a certain “breakneck” quality to the writing, and movement away from one kind of story to another, I am still willing to give Hamilton the benefit of the doubt. After all, one must change to live, and who is to say reading about Chinese triads won’t be just as fascinating? This is another good choice for Hamilton, a heretofore unexploited piece of the literary landscape for crime fiction. Good luck to him with the research, however, which I suspect will be even trickier than uncovering and exposing extravagant examples of international fraud. show less

Triad business turns towards the People's Republic of China!

Once more I am dazzled by Hamilton's understandings of historical times in China and Hongkong.
An escapee from China under tragic circumstances has Uncle vowing never to return. But needs must. When Uncle turns his eyes towards Shenzhen there is the worry that even though Uncle has HongKong ID, the People's Republic will not respect that.
I was absorbed by the continuing story of Uncle Chow and the Fanling triad's move into business show more in the Special Economic Zone in "Shenzhen, next door to Hong Kong and on Fanling’s doorstep." Zones created by Premier Deng Xiaoping as a move towards
transforming "China into an economic superpower." (A happening we are now all familiar with.)
Its 1981 and Uncle and the Fanling triad are in trouble. The Hong Kong Jockey Club has a legal betting monopoly and they have been gathering momentum putting Uncle's operations under increased pressure. Uncle will have nothing to do with "loan-sharking, protection rackets, and drug dealing." This makes him the odd man out with the rest of Hong Kong's triad organizations, and yet to my mind an honorable man with a peculiar sense of right and wrong.
I am glued to how Uncle absorbs losses and as a man of vision continues to creatively develop his fiefdom. I am struck by his sense of integrity and loyalty. Who would think that I'd become so fond of a triad leader. And there you have it! Fond I am of Uncle Chow. Of course his story gives us the background to how Ava Lee and her associates were able to develop their clothing design business.
I am so intrigued, by and appreciative of Uncle's story, that I read this in one sitting!

An Anansi Press ARC via NetGalley show less