The Mandarin Club

Currently a D.C. lobbyist who has worked as a congressional and Senate staffer, Warburg brings decades of policy experience to bear on his debut novel. The result is a wonky thriller about Chinese-American relations-topical and intelligent but without narrative urgency. The club of the title refers to a group of seven friends, once China studies scholars at Stanford University in the late 1970s, now middle-aged public and private sphere power brokers in Washington, D.C., and Beijing. Hinging on the story of Rachel Paulson, a top Washington lobbyist, the novel unfolds from the viewpoints of other ""Mandarins,"" including Branko Rosza (CIA), Alexander Bonner (investigative journalist), Mickey Dooley (international wheeler-dealer), Martin Booth (Senate staffer), Lee Tai Ling (Chinese Foreign Ministry) and Barry Lavin (Rachel's enigmatic husband and an investor). Their stories intersect when Rachel's firm is bombed and she barely survives the attack, the motivation for which is a mystery. The bombing comes at a time of increasing U.S.-China tensions that arise from America's continuing support of Taiwanese independence.