Black Karma: A White Ginger Novel

At the start of Robinson’s entertaining sequel to 2013’s White Ginger, Bai Jiang, a souxun (finder of lost people), agrees to help the SFPD’s Inspector Kelly locate Daniel Chen, a possibly illegal Chinese immigrant who was involved in a recent shoot-out in a trendy San Francisco neighborhood that left three persons dead. In her quest for Chen, Bai must contend with a drunken cop straight out of central casting; a vicious Latino gang; a marriage offer from the rich but insufferable Howard (via his dominating mother); and her inability to resist Jason, a gang boss and father of her 13-year-old daughter. The dialogue is a little too flip, the devil-may-care attitude toward wealth too much the stuff of fantasy, and the conclusion anticlimactic, but there’s something wonderfully appealing about Bai—a combination of a knife-throwing ninja warrior, a fairy godmother, and Wonder Woman. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (Nov.)