The King of Shanghai

The King of Shanghai takes Ava Lee, the heroine of Ian Hamilton's eight-novel series, into the businesses of Chinese venture capital, high fashion, cheap iPhone knockoffs and organized crime.

The story opens with the elegant and petite Lee in Toronto condominium-bound with grief over the death from cancer of Chow Tung, a man she called Uncle. Chinese tradition calls for wearing white for 10 days after such a loved one's death. Lee dons the color for a month as she parses over every adventure she had with Uncle, who'd been chairman of the Triad societies before she knew him and, later, Lee's vital and much-older partner in a debt-collections business that more than once put her in harm's way: