The Expat

Shi’s underwhelming debut follows a Chinese American tech worker who gets entangled in corporate espionage. In the late 2010s, 26-year-old software engineer Michael Wang works on autonomous car technology at General Motors. On a “Reddit meets Stack Exchange” forum for coders, he encounters a mysterious woman named Vivian, who entices him to attend a business meeting in San Francisco with venture capitalist Bo Song. During the meeting, Song persuades Michael to join Beijing-based startup Naveon as vice president, but makes a $250,000 sign-on bonus contingent on Michael covertly transferring General Motors software to Naveon, which he does without hesitation. The theft ensnares Michael in a treacherous cloak-and-dagger battle that reverberates to the highest levels of government in China and the U.S., and raises questions about which country deserves his loyalty. Despite the intriguing setup, an absence of tension and a bland protagonist keep the narrative from taking flight. This misses the mark. Agent: Simon Toop, Clegg Agency. (July)