{"id":4421,"date":"2022-05-09T05:13:42","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T12:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4421"},"modified":"2022-05-09T05:13:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T12:13:42","slug":"brian-klingborg-wild-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/brian-klingborg-wild-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Klingborg: Wild Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is the second novel about Inspector Lu Fei, who works in a small town outside of Harbin, China.\u00a0 The charm of the first novel, Thief of Souls, <\/em>were the inner workings of a small town Chinese police department and the lives of the officers, including and especially Lu Fei, who is an incredibly appealing character.\u00a0 In Wild Prey<\/em> Lu Fei remains appealing, but the topic Klingborg has chosen to spotlight is far more difficult.\u00a0 The first novel was a serial killer story; this one focuses on the illegal (and immoral) killing of rare animals for food.<\/p>\n

The book opens with an incredibly awful scene (power through it) that involves the killing of a tiger.\u00a0 What was especially well done, however, was Klingborg\u2019s portrait of the two men who kill the tiger \u2013 they are absolutely desperate and will use whatever money they gain to help feed their entire village.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t excuse what they do but it makes it understandable.<\/p>\n

Then the reader is invited back to Lu Fei\u2019s tiny town where a young girl begins showing up at the police station and refusing to leave.\u00a0 She\u2019s looking for her missing sister, who was not only the economic backbone of their little family (their mother is dead, and their dad is an unemployed drunk who \u201ccan\u2019t work\u201d) but the emotional center of the girl’s life.\u00a0 Meixiang, the older sister, worked as a waitress at an exclusive place in Harbin; Meirong, the younger sister, shows up every day demanding answers, and Lu Fei cannot refuse her.<\/p>\n

Lu Fei’s investigation takes him to the Meixiang\u2019s restaurant, which appears to be the place she was last seen, and in doing so he upsets the status quo and alarms some Harbin higher ups.\u00a0 He\u2019s suspended, and that\u2019s when he recruited by an officer in the National Forestry and Grassland Association.\u00a0 They are looking to curb the illegal consumption of exotic animals (including bear, pangolin, tiger, wolf, and many others) and shut down a large operation that appears to be based in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

One of the delights of the book is Lu\u2019s trip to Harbin with his hopefully soon to be girlfriend, Yanyang, to effect his undercover transformation, which includes euro trash clothes, a fake tattoo, and a new haircut.\u00a0 He then heads to the airport where he\u2019ll meet with the mystery man he\u2019s seen only on video.\u00a0 His incentive: to find out what happened to Meixiang, and hopefully regain his job in the police department.\u00a0 He can\u2019t imagine doing anything else with his life.<\/p>\n

The book than becomes a nonstop adventure story, studded with memorable characters.\u00a0 While what the people in the book are doing to animals (and also, frequently, to humans) is completely grotesque, Klingborg manages to create some fascinating and compellingly interesting characters who prove to be unforgettable, especially Khaw, the woman at the center of the action.<\/p>\n

While I think Klingborg\u2019s gifts are character based, he\u2019s fond of action as both of his novels prove, and he\u2019s also fond of the unexpected twist.\u00a0 There were at least three in this book I didn\u2019t see coming, including the final one, which is very well done.\u00a0 While the idea that Lu Fei would be killed seemed remote \u2013 he\u2019s the hero of the series \u2013 he sure comes close many times in this novel.<\/p>\n

I loved the explication of culture, and the look into a life so different from my own. Books are such an expansive way to see the world \u2013 while I may never go to Harbin, China or the jungles of Myanmar, I feel like I made a journey, and that the talented Klingborg has lifted the veil a bit for me to see what\u2019s behind it.\u00a0\u00a0 I very much look forward to book three.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second novel about Inspector Lu Fei, who works in a small town outside of Harbin, China.\u00a0 The charm of the first novel, Thief of Souls, were the inner workings of a small town Chinese police department and the lives of the officers, including and especially Lu Fei, who is an incredibly appealing … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[558,561,823,562,11,825,100,824,8,822],"class_list":["post-4421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-brian-klingborg","tag-china","tag-exotic-animals","tag-harbin","tag-international","tag-lu-fei","tag-minotaur-books","tag-myanmar","tag-police","tag-wild-prey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4423,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4421\/revisions\/4423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}