The Ghost Shift
A Novel
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of Gorky Park, John Gapper’s new thriller takes readers inside the secretive and dangerous world of modern China, as a young woman makes a haunting discovery—one that forces her to choose between duty to her government and a desperate desire to learn the truth about herself.
This wasn’t just a body in a field. The corpse’s shape was hers—same length, same curves. Then she knew, and everything else receded to nothingness. All she could see was a woman with the same nose, the same eyes, and the same face.
Her twin.
As an up-and-coming agent of the Commission for Discipline Inspection, Song Mei probes political corruption, not mysterious deaths. But that changes when she arrives on the scene of a grim police investigation and is confronted with a crime—and a victim—impossible to ignore. Despite strict orders and threats from superiors, Mei knows she can not turn away.
Breaking protocol, Mei undertakes a covert search for the truth about the mystery woman’s death—and life—by following in her footsteps from a factory plagued by worker suicides to a luxury hotel dealing in high-end escorts to an American home haunted by tragedy. But when Mei crosses paths with an ex–CIA operative on a shadowy mission of his own, her personal quest takes a jarring turn into political and industrial espionage that pits both agents against the highest ranks of communism and capitalism.
Praise for John Gapper’s A Fatal Debt
“Rarely does one read a first novel so self-assured, sharp, and compelling. It takes off like a rocket and doesn’t stop until its explosive conclusion.”—Joseph Finder, author of Suspicion
“An enlightening and grisly tale . . . tightly plotted and fast-paced.”—The New Yorker
“An ingenious thriller about the ruthless world of high finance.”—The Washington Post
“A fast-paced book that should entertain finance aficionados and fans of detective fiction alike.”—Fortune
“A neatly crafted and well-written thriller . . . an audacious, assured debut.”—David Ignatius, author of Bloodmoney
“[Gapper] knows when to put his foot on the narrative accelerator.”—Financial Times
“Intriguing . . . suspenseful . . . a web of deceit and betrayal.”—Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Gapper's uneven thriller set in contemporary Guangdong, China, 23-year-old police detective Song Mei investigates the suspicious death of a young woman who worked at Long Tan Technology, which makes smartphones and tablets for an Apple-like company. Mei is shocked to discover that the victim is her twin sister, whose existence she was unaware of. The complex, confusing backstory reveals that both girls were abandoned at birth and that Mei was adopted by American parents. Gapper (The Fatal Debt) takes his time building to the main action, which involves Mei infiltrating Long Tan to find out what happened to her twin and what's going on in the factory, particularly the super-secretive "ghost shift" of the title. At this point, the narrative becomes palpably and cinematically suspenseful, and the reader gets a compelling portrait of industrialized China. But the thrills of this well-written, often intelligent book are just too slow in coming.