Wheeler Cassidy, a wealthy playboy type with no ambition but pursuing lower golf scores, looser women, and ever more alcohol, has his life permanently altered when his near perfect do-no-wrong politically connected brother dies from a heart attack. Or was he murdered? Wheeler is joined by Tanisha Williams, a black street-smart LAPD detective from the Asian crimes Task Force in an effort to determine just what is behind the death and it isn’t long before the pair are on the trail of international criminals, the Chinese underworld, and having to fight against expectations and their own people along the way. For them, “riding the snake” has a different meaning but still fraught with just as much peril.
Stephen Cannell, is of course, well known as one of the most successful Hollywood television script writers and producers over the past fifty years. That could have been a red flag for me because television and novels are two different mediums and success in one certainly doesn’t always translate to success in the other. But I’ve read Mr. Cannell before and he usually produces fun-to-read novels. There are similarities to his TV shows; his novels are always well-paced, meaning there is a time for action, a time for romance, and a time for reflection. It’s a bit formulaic but it’s a formula designed for satisfying entertainment and, once again, it works well here. The characters were interesting and the plot was a good one. I felt invested in the outcome. I definitely learned more about Chinese life in general, Hong Kong, and about the last couple of decades of Chinese history than I knew before going into this book. In the end, it was another satisfying read from Mr. Cannell.
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