Finished the first truly new book of the new year:
The King of Shanghai by
Ian Hamilton, 7th and latest in his Ava Lee, Intrepid Globe-Trotting Chinese-Canadian Lapsed Catholic Lesbian Forensic Accountant series of stolen-money-recovering investigative action mysteries that are gradually evolving into international business crime adventure thrillers.
So, this is a continuity-heavy series, and as a result of certain events in #6, Ava's personal and professional lives are continuing to undergo changes, with a shift away from the debt collecting which dominated the first 5 or so books, and more onto other ventures with a hypothetically more sustainable basis.
How sustainable, OTOH, is open to question, as a number of things that happened during earlier debt-collecting missions (which occasionally included some extra-legal tactics to get the money back), are starting to catch up with Ava as she gets caught up in a conflict between new friends and old enemies (not necessarily her own).
Once again, this was a nifty adventure where we got to see a whole lot of How To Set Up A Sustainable Business, alongside How To Negotiate Disputes In Order To Avoid A SPOILER SPOILER (Hopefully), and it was good to see the deepening relationship between Ava and her partners and allies, as well as some old chickens coming home to roost.
Recommended as another entertaining installment in a fun series if you've been following it so far because at this point you really can't read the stories standalone any more (although despite the added seriousness and increased violence as a result thereof of the situation-to-be-solved, it does feel like more of a lightweight installment than previous volumes in the series). We got this one released a little early (they moved it up a month to December), but the next one will have to wait until February 2016, according to the teaser excerpt in the back.
Incidentally, if you're curious about starting the series, which IMHO is excellent and recommended if you're into this sort of thing, Kobo's Boxing Week Holiday Sale (still ongoing until midnight EST today) has in its Canadian version the 1st novel + prequel novella bundle edition of
The Water Rat of Wanchai + The Dragon Head of Hong Kong for just $2.99 CAD (couponable), which is a dirt-cheap price considering that I bought it during a previous holiday weekend sale for $4.99 and considered it
money well spent when I read it to determine if I wanted to get the other discounted ones (not on sale this time around).
The prequel novella can also be read in full
free online @ author Hamilton's Wattpad account as part of some promo for this current new release.