More award news! Left Coast Crime will be oceanside in Monterey, California this year (thus the monikker Calamari Crime), and here is its recently announced list of nominated honorees!
The zoo located in the People's Park of Luohe, in the province of Henan China had attempted something that was so cartoon, it could very well have been an episode of Scooby Doo. Almost. The State Run newspaper, the Beijing Youth Daily reports that a customer named Liu wanted to show her son the different…
One man's do-it-yourself mountain atop a Beijing skyscraper is not pleasing his neighbors, one of whom called its builder a “menace.” The article's author calls Zhang Lin an “eccentric professor,” but around here, we know that's all just code for “supervillain.” Think of the children! Leave the lair alone! Read (and see) much more at…
An excerpt of The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, the second book in the Ava Lee mystery series by Ian Hamilton (available June 25, 2013). Meet Ava Lee, alluring but deadly, with a mind like a steel trap, as she chases millions of dollars and dangerous criminals around the globe in this exotic and fast-paced new…
Enigma Of China by Qiu Xiaolong, the 8th book in the Inspector Chen series, involves political machinations in Shanghai (available June 18, 2013). China is a country in flux, with a government determined to retain its communist heritage while also accommodating demands from a technologically advanced citizenry for increased personal liberties. These contradictory impulses birthed…
An excerpt of The Corpse Reader by Antonio Garrido, a novel based on the work of Song Cí, the real-life thirteenth-century “father” of modern forensic investigation (available May 28, 2013). After his grandfather dies, avid scholar and budding forensic investigator Song Cí grudgingly gives up his studies to help his family. But when another tragedy strikes,…
Shattered Trident by Larry Bond is a submarine-centered, military thriller set in the not-too-distant future (available May 7, 2013). China is the new Russia, a writer’s go-to country for worldwide threats. Larry Bond’s latest SUBNOV, Shattered Trident, highlights this status with an intriguing, plausible, premise: the Chinese take over various long-disputed Spratly Islands in the…
A man in China hired assassins to kill his son. Oh, don't worry, it was just his gaming avatar in a series of online video games. The man, identified in foreign press simply as “Mr. Feng,” hired assassins to kill his 23-year-old unemployed son in the various online games he played. The son was very…
Blood of War by Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice is the fourth—and final—Red Dragon Rising thriller (available January 15, 2013). It is 2014, and climate change has left the world on the edge of chaos. As depression and drought wrack China, the country’s new premier has launched a deadly war with Vietnam. The assault has…
You know the look well: crazy white hair sticking out in all directions, coke-bottle thick goggles held fast across wildly staring eyes, while thickly gloved hands (black rubber gloves, no doubt) hold aloft a bubbling beaker as the “scientist” shouts: “I’ve done it! I’ve created the world’s first [INSERT WACKY CREATION HERE]!” Or maybe: “Fools!…
