In the old days before streaming video, the only place you could reliably see a Chinese martial arts movie was on your local TV station’s Saturday afternoon broadcast of Kung Fu Theater, or some similarly named program. Chances are it would a double feature—Shaolin Executioners followed by Dirty Ho, perhaps—featuring guys in bad wigs and…
What is noir? It’s legendarily hard to define but you know it when you see it: Dark streets slick with rain. Seedy hotel rooms lit by a reddish neon glare. A wisp of smoke curling up from a cigarette in a shadowy corner. Desperate men and women with obscure motives and shifting loyalties. In Asia,…
If you can’t decide on what to read, the Minotaur Spring Sampler is the perfect way to choose. Whether you want to start a series or read a standalone novel, the Sampler has you covered. With five books to choose from, the Sampler contains the beginnings of five different mysteries. Just download for free on…
SATURDAY Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China’s 600 million people is that they are “poor and blank.” This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes, the desire for action, and the desire for revolution. On a blank…
Brian Klingborg’s Thief of Souls (Minotaur Books, May 2021) marks the launch of a new mystery series following Inspector Lu Fei. When a brutal murder in a rural village in Northern China sends shockwaves all the way to Beijing, Inspector Lu Fei, exiled to this tiny town, is seemingly the only one interested in finding…
