Ava Lee is a young Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant who works for an elderly Hong Kong-based “Uncle,” who may or may not have ties to the Triads. At 115 lbs., she hardly seems a threat. But her razor-sharp intellect and resourcefulness allow her to succeed where traditional methods have failed.

In The Water Rat of Wanchai, Ava travels across continents to track $5 million owed by a seafood company. But it’s in Guyana where she meets her match: Captain Robbins, a huge hulk of a man and godfather-like figure who controls the police, politicians, and criminals alike. In exchange for his help, he decides he wants a piece of Ava’s $5 million action and will do whatever it takes to get his fair share. 

I stumbled onto Ian Hamilton’s books after a Canadian reviewer who I follow said that the Ava Lee books and the Uncle Chow Tung books were ‘zero-risk’ reads that she knew she would always enjoy. As the Uncle Chow Tung books are a spin-off from the Ava Lee series, I decided to start with the first Ava Lee book, ‘The Water Rat Of Wanchai‘ (released in the UK under the awful title of ‘The Deadly Touch Of The Tigress‘). Published in 2011, it won the Best First Novel Arthur Ellis Award (now known as the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence).

As soon as I started it, I knew I was in for a treat. This was a book about a forensic accountant that felt both credible AND exciting. That’s not an easy thing to achieve.

It may be an odd thing to say about a thriller but I found the start of the book, when Ava Lee was uncovering the scam and following the money, relaxing. I enjoyed slipping into the international business world of the Chinese diaspora. It’s a world that I’ve only seen from the fringes but what I have seen made Ian Hamilton’s descriptions feel solid and believable.

I loved the small insights into Chinese culture, seen through the eyes of Ava Lee, a Chinese Canadian woman who is as comfortable doing business in Hong Kong, Bangkok or Singapore as she is in Toronto, Seattle or New York.

Ava is a wonderful creation. On first meeting, she seems harmless: small, quiet, smart without being showy, conservatively dressed, scrupulously polite and effortlessly attractive. It takes a while for people to realize that she is a powerful woman who is focused, persistent, talented, physically dangerous and a ruthless risk-taker who will do whatever it takes to win. I enjoyed watching her work her solve problems, especially when the problem-solving involved figuring out how to overcome people more powerful than she is.

Forensic accounting doesn’t sound like a risky business but when the task is to recover five million dollars from a criminal who has taken refuge in a failed State in South America where he has bought himself protection from powerful men, unconventional approaches are needed, dangerous alliances have to be made, deception is the preferred strategy and violence is always a tactical option.

The tension in the last twenty per cent of the book was palpable and had a heist movie feel to it. Ava was in danger and was no longer in control of events. I couldn’t see how she was going to get out of the mess she was in but part of my enjoyment came from my confidence that she’d come up with something clever and risky that I hadn’t thought of.

I want to spend more time following Ava around so I was happy to see that there are another fifteen books in the series. I’ll be reading the second book, ‘The Disciple Of Las Vegas‘, next month.

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