num_pages: 272
description: Present Day, Beijing, Mei Wang is a modern, independent woman. She has her own apartment. She owns a car. She has her own business with that most modern of commodities - a male secretary. Her short career with China's prestigious Ministry for Public Security has given hew intimate insight into the complicated and arbitrary world of Beijing's law enforcement. But it is her intuition, curiosity, and her uncanny knack for listening to things said - and unsaid - that make Mei Beijing's first successful female private investigator.Mei is no stranger to the dark side of China. She was six years old when she last saw her father behind the wire fence of one of Mao's remote labor camps. Perhaps as a result, Mei eschews the power plays and cultural mores - guanxi - her sister and mother live by ... for better and for worse.Mei's family friend "Uncle" Chen hires her to find a Han dynasty jade of great he believes the piece was looted from the Luoyang Museum during the Cultural Revolution - when the Red Guards swarmed the streets, destroying so many traces of the past - and that it's currently for sale on the black market. The hunt for the eye of jade leads Mei through banquer halls and back alleys, seedy gambling dens and cheap noodle bars near the Forbidden City. Given the jade's provenance and its journey, Mei knows to treat the investigation as a most delicate matter; she cannot know, however, that this case will force her to delve not only into China's brutal history, but also into her family's dark secrets and into her own tragic separation from the man she loved in equal parts.
language: English
title: The Eye of Jade
titlecomplete: The Eye of Jade (A Mei Wang Mystery, #1)
genres: Asian Literature, Fiction, China, Mystery Thriller, Detective, Audiobook, Asia, Adult, Crime, Mystery
ratings_count: 1118
places: China
series: A Mei Wang Mystery
awards: awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Shamus Award
category: Best First PI Novel
publisher: Simon & Schuster