I didn't like this book. The characters are good. The described plot is good... but it's too slow paced for me. Things never happened and when I felt there was going to be progress, there wasn't any. I still don't understand what happened to Joyce althought I knew who did it. The ending is just... I can't explain. I didn't understand this book.

Very well written but if you want a good mystery, this isn't it. This is really just an interesting group of people expressing opinions and perspectives. It also loses track of itself and I had to make myself finish this due to the disjointedness.

A Chinese Remedy is the first book featuring "fixer" Chance Yang, written by Shawe Ruckus. Released in 2021, this release roughly coincides with the release of the third book in the series. It's 246 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

This was an interesting read, with a large cast of odd but well rendered characters and engaging story. It's less a crime fiction story (although the crime element is tangential) and much more of a collection of character study vignettes tied together through common elements and circumstances. The story elements required a bit more attention to detail; it's not a passive read, and it's not a cozy mystery. In fact the mystery element is secondary to the character driven plot.

It's quite well written, although stylistically very choppy and staccato. Many of the passages are more like theatre scene direction and notation. Characters wander onstage, deliver their lines, and exit stage left. It doesn't take long to get into the flow of the book's odd pacing, but it is noticeable.

There are three books extant in the series at this point, making it a good candidate for a long weekend binge or buddy read.

Three and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I would like to thank Netgalley and H. R. Wallace Book Marketing for a review copy of A Chinese Remedy, the first novel in the Mercenaries in Suits series featuring Chance Yang.

Chance and his boss, Felipe Kazama, are in London to investigate the death of Joyce Peng, who committed suicide in her flat. Her brother, an Asian tycoon, isn’t convinced and wants them to look into her final days. A fire locked Joyce out of her apartment and she went to stay with her former girlfriend, Tilly Wurman, now a married woman, who reports that Joyce was acting strangely and seemed obsessed with how to commit suicide. Felipe seems to know more about the case than he’s letting on, but leaves the investigating to Chance and if that’s not enough he wants Chance to babysit Catherine Roxburgh who has been in India for the past year and has acquired a stalker on her return.

I don’t quite know what to say about A Chinese Remedy. It is a strange novel to find in the crime fiction section as it isn’t really about crime, it’s about people, their interactions, their musings, their culture and their personalities. It’s also a bit of a love song to London. Having said that, I found it quite compulsive and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

Much of the novel comprises of conversation between Chance and Felipe, more Felipe running his mouth in non stop stream of consciousness mode with Chance listening. It’s not quite what it seems, yes there are stories and randomly inserted facts, but it seems to me that most of them are highly relevant to either the case in hand or the way of the world in a roundabout way. It is both informative and amusing. There is also a misbegotten romance, which is a story of misunderstandings and shyness. I found it cute and endearing. Running through this are Chance’s memories of his last romance with Isabel. That takes a while to tease out and, even by the end is not clearcut, but that’s the story of the novel, like life nothing is clearcut.

A Chinese Remedy is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.