Yellowthread Street

William Marshall is one of the most amazing detective novelists in the business. His prose style is distinguished by being deliberately disjointed in a post-modern way, and his books have lots of strange violence and knowledge of weird local customs. Read all the books in this series and also in his Manilla Bay series. They are astonishing, vivid books, brief, not hard to read, but exhilarating. While Hong Kong as it then was has changed a bit, dating the books a little, I'm excited to have them back in print.

This was the first in the series of ficitonal murder mysteries set in Hong Bay, Hong Kong. Protected by Detective Chief Inspector Harry Fieffer, Detective Inspector Christopher O'Yee, and Detectives Phil Auden and Bill Spencer, Hong Bay seems to be an authentic, frenzied, violent part of Hong Kong. While the station deals with a 'lost' American tourist and his harridan wife, more serious crime intrudes, with a Mongolian who is demanding 'protection' from local merchants, and attacking those who resist. The denouement is typical Marshall, a combination of fast action, violence, and chaos, with chaos being the most prominent factor. In this book, Spencer is the 'new guy', and Marshall convincingly shows us how Spencer has a difficult time fitting in with the other detectives. But as experienced Yellowthread Street readers know, the detectives prevail---at a price. Marshall is the pre-eminent writer of humorous, suspenseful police procedurals writing these days, and I am continually impressed by his expertise. Long may the detectives of Hong Bay continue to fascinate us!