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Summary
Summary
- FLASH HOUSE was published in Warner hardcover in 2/03, and became a "Los Angeles Times bestseller.- With its phenomenal characterizations and exotic setting, FLASH HOUSE won raves in publications, including the "Los Angeles Times, Booklist, and a starred review in "Publishers Weekly, among others.- Foreign rights were sold in England, Holland, and Italy.- Liu's previous novel, "Cloud Mountain (Warner, 1997), was a critical success, winning praise from the "Dallas Morning News, Rocky Mountain News, Asian Reporter, Publishers Weekly, and "Library Journal, among other publications. Foreign rights were sold in more than 10 countries and it was excerpted in "Good Housekeeping magazine.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in tumultuous post-WWII Asia, Liu's third novel (after Face and Cloud Mountain) is a sweeping espionage thriller that traces a woman's efforts to find her husband after he disappears into the back country of Communist China in 1949. Joanna Shaw, who runs a rescue agency for Asian prostitutes in New Delhi, offers asylum to a 10-year-old rape victim named Kamla. Shortly afterwards Joanna is notified that her husband, Aidan, a journalist who has been targeted by J. Edgar Hoover for alleged Communist sympathies, has gone missing after a plane crash in Kashmir. Convinced that Aidan is alive, Joanna sets off with her husband's friend, Malcolm Lawrence, and Kamla as their interpreter to find Aidan, but their quest hits a dead end after they discover the body of the female journalist with whom Aidan apparently was traveling. As her prospects of locating Aidan fade, Joanna begins an affair with Malcolm, but soon learns that her new lover had a key role with Aidan in an espionage operation, as a result of which Aidan may have defected to China. Liu tracks the shifting alliances of Aidan, Joanna and Malcolm with surefooted storytelling and solid characterization, and introduces layers of suspense rooted in provocative political secrets. The ending is a crescendo of bittersweet revelations, in which Liu's ability to probe issues of East versus West rises to a new level. Agent, Richard Pine. 4-city author tour; rights sold in Holland, Italy and the U.K. (Feb.) Forecast: The current president of PEN USA, Liu brings strong literary credentials to a background in Asian politics, a combination that should engender critical interest and solid sales for this impressive novel. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A missing-persons thriller set in the late 1940s' borderlands of Kashmir, where a determined American wife sets about uncovering what became of her journalist husband. There are not many better places to disappear than Kashmir, the perennial casus belli sandwiched between India, Pakistan, and China. When Chinese-American journalist Aidan Shaw went there on assignment in 1949 to cover the latest border dispute, however, his American wife Joanna was not particularly concerned. Aidan, after all, had been on far more dangerous assignments, and he'd actually been given the Kashmir assignment as a way of getting him out of the more politically sensitive China bureau (where his articles criticizing the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek had made him the object of FBI and HUAC suspicion). When she's later told that Aidan's plane has crashed in Kashmir (but that no bodies had been recovered), Joanna simply can't bring herself to believe it. Her reaction is partly denial, partly intuition-but whatever the reason, she's sure that Aidan is still alive. She goes through the official channels (State Department, press agencies, UN police) and gets nowhere, so she enlists the help of Aidan's best friend, Lawrence Malcolm (of the Australian secret service). Lawrence tells her bluntly that the only way to get reliable answers for anything connected with Kashmir is to go there yourself, so Joanna does, with Lawrence as her guide and the ten-year-old girl Kamla (whom Joanna had rescued from a New Delhi brothel) as their interpreter. In Kashmir, their trail leads them to China, then in the throes of a Communist revolution, and the question quickly arises: Who was Aidan really working for? A difficult question. But Joanna is determined to find her husband-or find out who he was. Some nice historical scenery and a good cast of characters, but otherwise a standard potboiler from Liu (Cloud Mountain, 1997, etc.). Author tour
Booklist Review
Liu's latest novel is part love story, part gripping tale of espionage, and part primer on the tangled early years of the cold war. Journalist Aidan Shaw warned his wife, Joanna, not to expect a quiet life with him, but their existence in postpartition New Delhi is relatively tranquil until he disappears while on assignment in Srinagar. Joanna refuses to accept official reports that Aidan is dead, and in the company of his best friend, Lawrence, the Shaws' young son, Simon, and Kamla, a 10-year-old girl Joanna has rescued from a brothel, she sets out on a trek across the mountains to find him. What she finds instead are secrets and more secrets, for in Central Asia in 1949, everyone is hiding something--beginning with Aidan himself. Unfolding with the mystery of Aidan's disappearance is the haunting story of Kamla, orphaned and abandoned, determined to survive and passionately devoted to Joanna. Richly evocative prose and a memorable cast of characters should win this novel a wide readership. Meredith Parets
Library Journal Review
Even as she rescues the orphaned young Kalma from a flash house (or brothel) in New Dehli, Joanna Shaw suffers a serious shock. Her husband, Aidan, a U.S. journalist of part Chinese and part Irish descent, has disappeared in a plane crash in Kashmir. China is about to fall to the Communists, and Aidan's plane was carrying U.S. military personnel, but neither the U.S. ambassador nor the military is much interested in helping Joanna locate her husband. But she does have the help of Lawrence Malcolm, an Aussie mate of Aidan who is in love with Joanna and has suffered some losses of his own. Joanna packs up Simon, Lawrence eventually joins her with Kalma, and together they travel into a heart of darkness to find a man who perhaps wants to be lost. Nothing is exactly as it seems, and Joanna suffers a lot of rude shocks before the story is over. Perhaps Liu (Face; Cloud Mountain) has put a lot of irons in her fire; perhaps the silvery prose slides by a bit too easily. No matter; this is engrossing and entertaining reading, with great character development. For all popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/02.]-Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
