This is the second Detective Inspector Chen book, but really it's
Demon Policeman Zhu Irzh's book, and I liked it more than the first,
SNAKE AGENT. I'm not going to bother with a plot-summary here -- it
wouldn't make sense, and wouldn't help me convince you what a cool
book this is. Hmm, how to do that?

First, Liz Williams is a helluva storyteller. The pages turn, the
characters take life, the plot twists... This is a very entertaining
book. Well-written, explicitly adult, sometimes startlingly sexy, it
unfolds like a lucid dream....

Second, the Chinese mythic backstory is just totally cool. I have no
idea how close she hews to the real thing. Here's the author: "It's
all based on actual Chinese mythology, however, which suggests the
numerous levels, and which is also very bureaucratic. One reviewer
hated the bureaucratic nature of hell and wondered why I'd been so
unimaginative - but it is as faithful a reflection of Chinese myth as
I can make it...

I've always been interested in Chinese mythology but what really
started [this series] off was a visit to Hong Kong in the early 90s. A
friend of mine is a reporter for the South China Morning Post and at
the time, she was writing two books about the colony, one on murder
and the other on sex, and she was briefly going out with a cop on the
HK vice squad. So there was plenty of material to draw on!" --
Interview,
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/11555-chronicles-interview-with-...

If you haven't tried this series, or Liz Williams, this would be a
fine place to start. I have #3 ondeck now.

Happy reading--
Pete Tillman