Black Karma
A White Ginger Novel
Thatcher Robinson
(Seventh Street – paperback, Kindle)
Life definitely is not easy for Bai Jiang, San Francisco’s best-known people-finder (souxun). As a beautiful, and single, female investigator, Bai gets hit on a lot, even by her ex-husband. People also try to hit her, shoot her, or otherwise kill her in some way.
Now she is being offered an arranged marriage that supposedly will give her a big stake in a 30-billion-dollar business–but might be a trap. Plus, she has been asked by a San Francisco police inspector to help track down someone allegedly involved in a botched drug deal that left a police officer dead. And Bai now has three teenage females living in her house–one is her daughter by her ex-husband; the other two are rescues: one from the sex trade and the other from a fearsome gang.
Meanwhile, someone has just tried to kill her investigative partner, Lee. And the person Bai is trying to locate may have some connections that go far beyond mere drug deals and murder.
This second novel in Thatcher Robinson’s new White Ginger series is full of twists, turns, complications, dangers and Chinatown atmosphere. And Bai Jiang is an appealing investigator: a Buddhist who is mostly fearless and definitely skilled with hidden knives, yet also vulnerable to romance, fashion and the plight of women who have been endangered and abused. Definitely recommended if you are looking for a new and unusual investigator to follow.
— Si Dunn