Death Doesn't Forget
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Jing-nan, owner of a popular night market food stall, is framed for a string of high-profile murders—why does it seem like he's always the one left holding the skewer? The fourth entry to Ed Lin's Taipei mystery series is as hilarious and poignant as ever.
Taipei is rocked by the back-to-back murders of a recent lottery winner and a police captain just as the city is preparing to host the big Austronesian Cultural Festival, which has brought in indigenous performers from all around the Pacific Rim to the island nation of Taiwan. Jing-nan, the proprietor of Unknown Pleasures, a popular food stand at Taipei’s largest night market, is thrown into the intrigue. Is he being set up to take the rap, or will he be the next victim? The fallout could jeopardize Jing-nan’s relationship with his girlfriend, Nancy, who is herself soon caught up in the drama, and is increasingly annoyed at Jing-nan’s failure to propose to her.
Jing-nan also has to be careful not to alienate his trusty workers Dwayne and Frankie the Cat, who are facing their own personal trials. Dwayne struggles to reconnect with his roots as a person of aboriginal descent, while septuagenarian Frankie helps a fellow veteran with dementia, intertwining stories that illuminate decades of Taiwanese history.
Jing-nan, meanwhile, has to untangle the mystery of the killings while keeping his food stall afloat against hip new competition. Both his life, and his Instagram follower count, hang in the balance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Lin's intriguing fourth novel starring Taipei food stall operator Jing-nan (after 2018's 99 Ways to Die), Siu-lien, the mother of Jing-nan's girlfriend, buys some cigarettes for her boyfriend, Boxer, and the receipt's number is drawn in the latest government lottery, winning her 200,000 New Taiwan dollars. (To track taxable income, every receipt in Taiwan is automatically entered in this lottery, incentivizing consumers to request one.) Boxer and Siu-lien agree to split the money evenly, but after he cashes in the receipt, he reneges on their agreement. Jing-nan, who has become a celebrity thanks to his previous misadventures, agrees to try to recoup Siu-lien's share, but he gets only a small portion of it from Boxer. Soon afterward, Boxer is bludgeoned to death, and the police focus on Jing-nan, the last person known to have seen him alive, and with a motive, as the killer. Lin ups the ante on his lead with a second murder, and once again he brings to life the sights and smells of the night market where Jing-nan works. Fans of recognizably human amateur sleuths will be pleased.
