The Chinese Fire Drill (Five Star First Edition Mystery Series)

From Publishers Weekly
After 15 years and 18 mysteries featuring either Saxon, a Hollywood actor/private investigator, or Milan Jacovich, a Cleveland private investigator, the author takes a break from the genre that has netted him two Shamus Awards to try his hand at an international thriller. The result is a fast-paced, enjoyable Hong Kong adventure starring Anthony Holton, an American expatriate novelist. Holton has made a home for himself in Bangkok, where he misses a distress call from his actor buddy Jake McKay in Hong Kong. By the time he responds, Holton learns that Jake's fancy boat has been stolen and Jake has gone missing. Holton flies to the rescue and straight into trouble. Roberts captures the ambience of Hong Kong as easily as he does that of his native Cleveland, while Holton, truly a stranger in a strange land, has to deal with a slew of shady characters to find Jake. An American mercenary, a fake film producer, warring triad factions, a laissez-faire police chief, an alcoholic British journalist and a spurned woman are among those Holton encounters as he battles deceptions and danger. Readers who want political correctness should look elsewhere (Holton jokes that if his Thai houseboy insisted on pronouncing his name correctly, "I'd probably fire him and have to answer my own telephone"). But Roberts's debut as a thriller writer draws on his strength as a plotter, and the book's economy offers a nice antidote to the bloated thrillers that weigh down many bookshelves. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Expatriate American novelist Anthony Holton has left his Bangkok home to search for his missing friend, Jake McKay, in Hong Kong. McKay disappeared shortly after someone stole his boat, the Hong Kong Lady. Holton aligns himself with McKay's two roommates: Kate Longley, to whom he is romantically inclined, and Boomer Crane, a soldier of fortune whose skills may come in handy. As the search progresses, Holton lands in the middle of a smuggling and piracy scam that seems to involve a Hollywood phony in Hong Kong to raise funds for a film. The story's exotic setting is something new for Roberts, who is best known for his Milan Jacovich private-eye series set in Cleveland. The Jacovich novels are detail-rich, small-scale dramas, but here Roberts proves equally at home telling a fast-paced story on a broad canvas. For fans of international thrillers. Gary Niebuhr
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


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Just as he's in Bangkok putting the finishing touches on yet another bestseller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Hilton gets a drop-everything phone call from Hong Kong. But Jake McKay, an old friend who's troubled about something, goes lost, strayed, or stolen before he can divulge details. Anthony, to whom friendship will always matter more than glittering prizes, zooms off to Hong Kong, where he meets Jake's platonic flatmate, beautiful Brit Kate Langley. In the flash of a thigh, however, her relationship with sexy Anthony becomes strictly nonplatonic. Through Kate, Anthony also meets an array of local types who may or may not have had something to do with Jake's disappearance: an ex-footballer who enjoys killing, a bogus film producer seeking to make a killing, and a film-struck Chinese billionaire about to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. In the process, Anthony learns that Jake's cherished sailboat, the Lady, vanished shortly before its owner, and begins to suspect that (1) the speedy craft was hijacked for nefarious purposes by a particularly vicious Chinese triad, and (2) if he finds the Lady he'll find Jake. But first, he'll find a lot of people eager to do harm to even the most free-swinging, head-knocking, bestselling author. Roberts, who's scored with the eminently likable Cleveland p.i. Milan Jacovich (The Dutch, 2001, etc.), fares less well on the Pacific Rim. Flimsy plot, pedestrian prose, and a cast hurting for believable characters.


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