Flower Net

Flower Net by See, Lisa. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780060175276.

In the depths of a Beijing winter, during the waning days of Deng Xiaopings reign, the U.S. ambassadors son is found dead - his body entombed in a frozen lake. Almost simultaneously, American officials find a ship adrift in the storm-churned waters off Southern California. No one is surprised to find the fetid hold crammed with hundreds of undocumented Chinese immigrants - the latest cargo in the Chinese mafias burgeoning smuggling trade. What does surprise Assistant U.S. Attorney David Stark is his discovery that among the hapless refugees lies the corpse of a Red Prince, a scion of Chinas political elite. The Chinese and American governments suspect that the deaths are connected, and in an unprecedented move they join forces to solve this cross-cultural crime. Stark heads for Beijing to team up with police detective Liu Hulan, whose unorthodox methods are tolerated only because of her spectacular investigative abilities. Their investigation carries them (and the reader) into virtually every corner of todays China - from its glitzy karaoke bars, where the nations new elite cuts deals, to the labyrinthine hutongs, where ordinary Beijingers have lived and died for centuries. Stark and Lius search leads them from the Chinese capital to Los Angeless thriving Asian community and turns up a bloodthirsty murderer at the very apex of Chinas power structure. Their work together also ignites their passion for each other - a passion forbidden by their respective governments and one that plays right into the hands of a serial killer.