Helpful Score: 1
I was absolutely breathless when I finished this book. April Woo is certainly not the typical cop, and Leslie Glass covers a lot of Chinese culture in these books that is fascinating. I would highly recommend this one if you want a book you cannot put down. Stick with it, because it's confusing at the beginning. Then it will take off and you will be up late reading, I guarantee!
Helpful Score: 1
I just discovered this author and now I'm trying to read everything she's written. Good series, builds a good mystery, and also has some very funny character development going on. Good read for all of us mystery lovers!
Lots of twists and turns in this story.Detective April Woo is a hard study.Worth a read.
Very good read.
April Woo (Judging Time, 1998, etc.) straddles two incompatible worlds: As a detective sergeant in the NYPD, she must be ambitious and aggressive; as the daughter of superstitious, demanding Chinese parents, she must be obedient and deferential. These tensions are the most involving aspect of this novel heavy on plot and coincidence. When Heather Rose Papescu, the Chinese-American wife of an affluent lawyer, is beaten and her adopted baby vanishes, it seems a straightforward kidnapping case. But Heather refuses to identify her attacker, and she and her husband, Anton, cannot produce adoption papers. Woven into the story is the plight of deathly ill Lin Tsing, an illegal alien working in a Chinatown factory owned by Anton's brutal relatives; Lin feels betrayed by her cousin, Nanci, who, coincidentally, was April's childhood friend. April's investigation of a case involving interracial marriage, meanwhile, prompts guilt over her affair with Latino cop Mike Sanchez. As the search for an apparently illegitimate baby continues, April examines her relationship with her parents, comparing her sense of assimilation with Heather's, who has also rejected Chinese traditions, and with Nanci's, who lives within them. While this overpopulated, overschematized story ends on an up beat, it's the themes of shame, guilt and familial obedience that make it work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW
I enjoyed it a great deal. I think it is always interesting to follow April Woo's investigations and family life.
One of the April Woo detective series. A very good police procedural.
Love Leslie Glass's books!
First time read. I was introduced to April Woo in this book and was able to catch on easily to her personality and her life. I would like to read more about April.
Very good book with characters that are likable and now want to know about them so will read more about April Woo.
