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A Taipei Night Market Novel
by Ed Lin
In Taipei, Taiwan, the kidnapping of a Mainlander billionaire throws national media into a tizzy - not least because of the famous victim's vitriolic anti-immigration politics.
Jing-nan has known Peggy Lee, a bullying frenemy who runs her family's huge corporation, since high school. Peggy's father has been kidnapped, and the ransom the kidnappers are demanding is not money but IP: a high-tech memory chip that they want to sell in China.
Jing-nan feels sorry for Peggy until she starts blackmailing him into helping out. Peggy is worried the kidnappers' deadline will pass before the police are able to track down the chip. But when the reluctant Jingnan tries to help, he finds himself deeper and deeper in trouble with some very unsavory characters - the most unsavory of whom might be the victim himself.
How do you think you would have fared in Rita's place during the tragedy? In those frantic minutes after the liner went under, would you have let the panicked people still in the water climb up the lifeboat, even at the risk of capsizing it?
Another difficult question. Obviously, we all hope we could summon the strength and courage to remain calm, help others, and survive. In reality? The freezing cold water, having to cling to a capsized life boat, trying to keep another woman safe & calm, all while wondering if sharks were on their...
-Janie-Hickok-Siess
Vigil by George Saunders via audio
OK, I'm going to employ the spoiler tag here so I won't ruin anything for anyone. When I saw Saunders had a new book coming out, I was incredibly excited. Lincoln in the Bardo remains one of my favorite books, long after I reviewed it for BookBrowse, and many, many outlets (Kirkus Reviews, Publis...
-kim.kovacs
1000 Books January 2026 Read: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Interestingly, my reading journal has a "Recommend: Y/N" line for each book, and I didn't feel like I could actually make a call on that. I think the book would have limited appeal. There's this one young gal I met several years ago who was looking for experimental fiction (I handed her Lincoln i...
-kim.kovacs
BookBrowsers ask Ellen Marie Wiseman
When I choose a topic to write about, I usually buy as many books on the subject as possible and do intense research for a month or so, taking notes and tagging important pages with sticky notes. Of course, I'm also researching the entire time I'm writing. As far as uncovering anything that surpr...
-Ellen_W
Before Dorothy is set during the Depression and Dust Bowl. Why do you think the author chose that period, and in what ways do you think the economic and ecological events of that time reflect the references to power that we see in The Wizard of Oz?
The choice of time period seemed to be about making this book line up with the movie rather than the original L. Frank Baum books. (He died in 1919, although I only just learned that other authors continued the series beyond the 14 that he wrote.) If Baum really did have economics and politics in...
-Celia_A
Is there a book you can name that's influenced your life in some way?
There are two, for very different reasons: https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/3523/lincoln-in-the-bardo Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I wrote in my review of it, "This stunning work hits all the right chords, imploring us to be kind to one another during a time wh...
-kim.kovacs
"Starred Review. Stellar...Lin effortlessly blends humor, plausible plot twists, and the politics and economics of contemporary Taiwan." - Publishers Weekly
"Lin's books are most appealing for the insider's look at Taiwanese culture, the motley crew of supporting cast and the multiple laughs per page." - BookPage
"Lin takes readers on a whimsical ride along with the reluctant Jing-nan, the overbearing Peggy, and some very shady characters, deftly mixing comedy, mystery, and drama in a page-turning story...This will appeal to readers who enjoy dark comedy, drama, and some very unexpected plot twists." - Library Journal
"Top-notch international crime fiction that will have readers dreaming of a visit to the Taipei market." - Booklist
This information about 99 Ways to Die was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ed Lin, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards and is an all-around standup kinda guy. His books include Waylaid, and a trilogy set in New York's Chinatown in the 70s: This Is a Bust, Snakes Can't Run and One Red Bastard. Ghost Month, published by Soho Crime in July 2014, is a Taipei-based mystery, and Incensed, published October 2016, continues that series.
Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.
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