Wild Prey by Brian Klingborg

 

First Line: Myanmar. The man and the boy wait until dark-- then they go in search of something to kill.

 

There's nothing for it. The only way he's going to rid the police station of the presence of teenage Meirong is to go out and find her sister. Trouble is, no one in any of the other police stations in northern China can be bothered to help him. He's been trying to run a sting operation on the sale and consumption of rare and endangered animals, and when he learns that Meirong's sister was a waitress in a restaurant owned by a gangster and frequented by powerful men from all walks of life for its exotic-- and highly illegal-- delicacies, the lead turns into a brick wall. No one wants to upset any of the men who are regulars at the restaurant.

 

Then he gets a phone call from a mysterious government official in Beijing who wants him to go undercover to track down an illegal animal trafficking network. No matter how dangerous, this is the perfect opportunity for him to get results for both of his investigations. All he's got to do is travel deep into the lawless wilds of Myanmar into the hidden compound of a ruthless female warlord. What could possibly go wrong?

 

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Author Brian Klingborg mined all the potential from his first Lu Fei mystery, Thief of Souls, and created a standout in Wild Prey-- even though the treatment of animals and most of the listed cuisine is stomach-churning. From flashes of laugh-out-loud humor to learning Chinese slang to the mind-boggling fact that there are 200 million surveillance cameras in China to the story itself, I was engrossed. Even though there is still the age-old problem of the rich and powerful insisting on being above the law, it is good to learn that China is finally bowing to international pressure and the coronavirus to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade. 

 

Inspector Lu Fei still finds almost no help from his fellow police officers, but at least he does have one friend in a high place-- and two fellow characters to help him carry the load. One, the teenage Meirong, is alternately funny and endearing as she camps out in the police station to shame Lu Fei into finding her sister. Little does she know, he is working on the case, he's just not telling her everything he's doing. The second character helping to carry the story load is the female warlord in Myanmar. She's not your typical thug even though you'd be a fool to turn your back on her. And at least Lu Fei has one person who's not involved in his work. It's the bar owner Yanyan with whom he's passionately in love, although she still seems to be in love with her dead husband. Watching that relationship unfold is interesting, to say the least. Will Lu Fei win Yanyan over? We shall see.

For those of you worried about those animal trafficking scenes and the descriptions of the dishes made from the animals, Klingborg does not go overboard. He knows that a light touch is the best way to proceed and although those scenes are few and of short duration, they still resonate and show the importance of why this trade must stop. We humans have to be intelligent enough to devise new ways to show off immense wealth and to cure erectile dysfunction. Don't we? In Wild Prey, Brian Klingborg shows that there are people willing to put their lives on the line to put a stop to one of the more disgusting ways to prove you're a big shot.    

Wild Prey by Brian Klingborg

eISBN: 9781250779083

Minotaur Books © 2022

eBook, 304 pages

 

Police Procedural, #2 Inspector Lu Fei mystery

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley

Thief of Souls by Brian Klingborg

 

First Line: On the night the young woman's corpse was discovered, hollowed out like a birchbark canoe, Inspector Lu Fei sits alone in the Red Lotus bar, determined to get gloriously drunk.

 

Usually, Inspector Lu Fei investigates nothing more serious than the theft of a few chickens in the rural northern Chinese town where he lives, but the brutal murder of a young woman means the Beijing CID sends one of its rising stars to take over. However, prosperity and stability are much more important to China than the death of an insignificant village girl, so pinning the death on the first likely suspect seems to be the order of the day. But not for Lu Fei.

 

Lu Fei wants justice for the murdered girl, so he continues to dig deeper. As a result, he finds himself at loggerheads with local Communist Party leaders and corrupt business interests, but he becomes more determined than ever when he links the girl's death to other unsolved crimes.

 

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Brian Klingborg's first Inspector Lu Fei mystery set in northern China had me looking for a heavy winter coat and a thicker pair of gloves. It was interesting to read a mystery set in an area other than one of the well-known large cities, especially one in the Harbin area which has a strong Russian influence. 

 

Lu Fei is a strong main character. Luckily for him, he's well versed in the martial arts, but he lives a very lonely life, spending many evenings after work drinking in a local bar. One of the reasons why he's lonely is due to his integrity. He's going to do what's right, no matter what, and that puts him at odds-- over and over again-- with corrupt police officers. He even has problems with the constables in his station. The constables' pay is unbelievably low, and they get so much disrespect from people that they have no real incentive to do their jobs properly.

 

The strongest parts of Thief of Souls are Lu Fei himself and all the information Klingborg gives readers about modern China, a lot of which is fascinating, and I felt that I came away from the book with a much better understanding of the country. However, that presented a problem. The author had to interject this information into the story so often that I began to feel as though I were attending class instead of reading a mystery. To his credit, I really don't see how he could've done this any differently. The information was crucial to the story, but it constantly interrupted the flow.  

I also found the killer's identity much too easy to deduce, and I hope Klingborg spends more time in the next book fleshing out his secondary characters because, even though Lu Fei is an interesting character, he can't do it alone. 

Even though this first book in the series has some problems, it's still a read that kept my interest throughout, and I'll be interested to see what sort of investigation Lu Fei will be heading next.

Thief of Souls by Brian Klingborg

eISBN: 9781250779069

Minotaur Books © 2021

eBook, 288 pages

 

Police Procedural, #1 Inspector Lu Fei mystery

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.