Take No Names
A Novel
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A riveting thriller about a fugitive in search of a quick payday in Mexico City who finds himself in the crosshairs of a dangerous international scheme
Victor Li is a man without a past. To his new employer, Mark, he’s just an anonymous hired hand to help with the dirty work. Together, they break into storage units that contain the possessions of the recently deported, pocketing whatever is worth selling. Only Victor and his sister, Jules, know that he’s a wanted man.
Amid the backpacks and suitcases, Victor makes the find of a lifetime: a gem rare and valuable enough to change his fortunes in an instant. But selling it on the sly? Nearly impossible. Thankfully, its former owner, a woman named Song Fei, also left a book of cryptic notes—including the name of a gemstone dealer in Mexico City.
When Victor and Mark cross the southern border, they quickly realize that this gem is wrapped up in a much larger scheme than they imagined. In Mexico City, shadowy international interests are jockeying for power, and they may need someone with Victor’s talents—the same ones that got him in trouble in the first place.
On the heels of his knockout debut Beijing Payback, Daniel Nieh delivers Take No Names, a white-knuckled and whip-smart thriller that races to an electrifying finish.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Nieh's taut sequel to 2019's Beijing Payback, Victor Li, who's living under an alias in Seattle, accepts a job offer from Mark Knox, who says he runs "Logistical Solutions. Number One in the Seattle Area for Making Things Run Smoothly." Actually, Knox is a crook who specializes in breaking into storage facilities to steal valuable items. During one such burglary, Li finds a puzzle box containing another puzzle box, out of which drops "an oblong red stone" that looks like an uncut ruby. Li soon figures out it's Painite, "the world's rarest gem," which Chinese extraction firms have been illegally mining in Myanmar. For the past year, Western countries have been boycotting Painite as a conflict stone since the Myanmar government began committing genocide against the Rakhine people in the region. That makes unloading the jewel complicated, and Li and Knox become enmeshed in a Chinese scheme to launder money and evade U.S. sanctions. Nieh makes the complex plot elements fit together while engendering sympathy for his morally compromised lead. Fans of Glen Erik Hamilton's Van Shaw books will be hooked.
