The Trail to Buddha's Mirror

After A Cool Breeze on the Underground, The Trail to Buddha's Mirror was Don Winslow's sophomore effort. Although he hadn't yet adopted all the mannerisms that we come to see in his later books like The Song of the Dog, there are many foretastes of what is to come in things like the potted history of the opium wars.

At this point, he also hadn't adopted the less-is-more aesthetic of, say, The Winter of Frankie machine, with it's straightforward driving plot.  Indeed, here there are several plot twists too many, in this story with twins, triple agents, agents from CIA, two different political groups in China, and private investigators as well.

On the other hand, Neal Carey is an appealing protagonist (even though he turns out to be a pretty ineffectual one here).  The story is fun for the most part.  I'm looking forward to more.