Ava Lee and her partner, Uncle, are asked to help a Chinese-born Philippino (a Chinoy) when $50 million disappears from a Canadian subsidiary run by his brother, supposedly a bad land investment. Despite misgivings about the client, they agree to recover the money only to find out that the money was swindled differently. Ava travels around the U.S., Canada and London, deciding how to gain cooperation of participants, ultimately ending up negotiating with a senior governmental official, where she needs heavy political muscle. Hamilton's characters are colorful, interesting and multi-faceted. ( )

Ava Lee is asked to retrieve company money lost in a high-stakes online poker game.

Intriguing detection and a good thriller. I still like Ava, and I like the fact that she is not superhuman, the violence does take its toll and she needs time to recover physically and mentally. ( )

this was an okay read. i found i was hugely distracted by the product placements/mentions of brand names throughout. (i have to look back on book #1 in this series, i think i took issue with this then, too.)

ava lee is an interesting character with so much potential... but i just don't know if hamilton is pulling it off for me. the writing isn't terrific (sorry!!!) and i think that's what making me feel like there is a disservice to ava lee going on. i can see this working well as a TV series (CBC is apparently adapting it). lee is evolving so slowly though, in the books. between book one and book two, not much development has gone on with her character at all.

still, i do like ava lee, and moments of the book are fun. these books are easy, escapist reads - perfect for vacation reading, or if you are sick and want something not too taxing. i will try book #3, and i hope things develop and become a bit more interesting. books #1 and #2 were just so similar, so i am a little worried that, save for a few changes in characters and settings, each book is very much the same. ( )

Fast paced but a little gory/dirty.

This was my 3rd Ava Lee having read the combined Prequel & No. 1 anthology The Water Rat of Wanchai + The Dragon Head of Hong Kong first. There was absolutely no drop off in the intensity of this sophomore effort by writer Ian Hamilton. If anything, it is even more relentless and there is at least one scene not fit for the squeamish.

I'm going to run out of superlatives before I finish reading this series but I have to say here that there is no one like Ava Lee. The only characters that come close are Lee Child's Reacher and Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. To paraphrase another noir writer David Mamet: There is nothing that Ava Lee will not do to get you your money back. You can take that to the bank!

This case follows straight on from The Water Rat of Wanchai with Ava barely having a chance to catch her breathe in Toronto before she heads to the Philippines, Vancouver, Victoria, San Francisco, Las Vegas and London and the stakes are higher than ever when a Chinese Filipino billionaire's family thinks it has been swindled out of $50 million in a land deal. And that is just the first layer of the onion before Ava Lee starts peeling it back to discover even more criminal doings beneath the surface.

Highly recommended if you like quirky lead protagonists and strong narrative action thrillers that rarely pause for a break. ( )