A review by marystevens
Ghost Month by Ed Lin

3.0

This book is as much about TaiPei as it is a mystery. The author is a journalist and this shows in the inner dialogue the protagonist Jing-nan has with the reader. It's a bit of a jivey travelogue, not that I wasn't interested in Taiwan, at least to a degree. The mystery is "why did Julia,(his childhood sweetheart) die in such disgraceful circumstances?" and the plot is pretty complex. Jing-nan and Julia were stars of their high school class and each won scholarships to US universities: UCLA and NYU. Pledged to stay apart and focus on academics until each had graduated, circumstances nonetheless aborted their academic careers and brought each of them separately back to Taipei. Still bound by their pledge, Jing-nan did not even know Julia was in TaiPei. When he sees her on the news, murdered at a betel-nut stand, he is driven to find out all he can and avenge her. I liked nearly all the characters, and I was motivated to find out how Jing-nan would manage to elude each succeeding danger but I would recommend this book primarily to people who are interested in China and Taiwan.