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The Jasmine Trade

The Jasmine Trade
The Jasmine Trade
A Novel of Suspense Introducing Eve Diamond  
By Denise Hamilton
This edition: eBook, 288 pages
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Description

Everything was set. Seventeen-year-old Marina Lu had even ordered custom-made gowns for the ten bridesmaids who, in several months' time, would have preceded her down the aisle at her storybook wedding.

There isn't going to be a wedding. Marina lies dead, alone in her shiny status car in a suburban shopping center parking lot, her two-carat diamond engagement ring refracting another abruptly shattered Los Angeles dream. Was her death merely a carjacking gone bad? Or is there more to the story?

Marina's murder chillingly introduces Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond to a subculture of "parachute kids," the rich Asian teens who are left to their own devices in California while their parents live and work in Hong Kong. Seeking American education and political stability for their children, the affluent parents often leave only an elderly housekeeper in charge of their vulnerable offspring.

What was Marina's story? Why was she, at such a young age, marrying twenty-four-year-old Michael Ho? Why is Marina's father, banker Reginald Lu, so reluctant to provide information? As Eve delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding Marina's life and death, she stumbles upon a troubled world of unmoored youth and parental neglect.

But Marina, in many ways, would seem to have been among the fortunate. She had money and her parents had power. Eve soon discovers a dramatically more tragic subculture, where destitute young Asian immigrants live in virtual sexual slavery. The story of May-li and her journey from a poor farming home in Fujian, China, to a brothel in Los Angeles is one that Eve will fight to tell and will never forget.

A moving, noir-accented crime novel that opens a rare window to an intriguing subject, The Jasmine Trade is a passionate and polished debut from an exciting new author.

Read more:

Chapter 1
Michael Connelly The Jasmine Trade is more than a good crime story. It is the crime novel as sociological study. Denise Hamilton delivers a gripping narrative with a busload of intriguing characters. And all the while she unflinchingly points her flashlight into one of the dark corners of our world. Read it and learn.
Thomas Perry author of Death Benefits The Jasmine Trade is an unusual find: a novel about a young female reporter investigating a crime, written by a female reporter who has covered such crimes, complete with the sights and sounds of L.A. presented unbeautified and unembellished.
Susan Straight author of The Getting Place and Highwire Moon Intricately plotted, breathless in places and achingly bittersweet in others, Denise Hamilton's first novel is a gem. I traveled to places I didn't know at all, in the Asian communities surrounding Los Angeles, and I met people I might never have heard speak if not for her book. It's not just a mystery, it's an entire world laid out in tapestry form.
Terrill Lankford author of the James Ellroy-praised novel Shooters An auspicious debut! Denise Hamilton reports in from the front lines of L.A.'s crime scene and tells it like it is with a detailed sense of place and a rip-roaring sense of pace. The Jasmine Trade is a hell of a book!
T. Jefferson Parker bestselling author of Red Light and Silent Joe The Jasmine Trade is a strong debut from a good new writer. Actually, Hamilton is an experienced reporter, and her sharp eye, tough mind, and open heart give this novel its credibility, emotion, and compassion. Her look at Chinese-American crime in Southern California is revealing and unsettling.
The New York Times Book Review [A] meaty first novel, [Eve's] anger informs her insights into the depravities that lie buried in insular societies.
The Los Angeles Times [Eve Diamond] reminds me of a younger, more vulnerable version of Edna Buchanan's Miami-based Britt Montero.
USA Today Hamilton takes readers where few have gone before-and [she] has a knack for writing about the immigrant experience and race relations on a romantic and political level.
Publishers Weekly In addition to a gripping story and keen observations about contemporary Los Angeles, [Denise Hamilton] also offers an undeniably winning narrator: intelligent, impulsive Eve is sharp on the outside and vulnerable on the inside.
The Denver Post Denise Hamilton and Eve Diamond are the real deal.
"Denise Hamilton has used her skills as a journalist to create a heartrending story about the plight of parachute kids that is at once eye-opening and compelling.  The Jasmine Trade reminds us that sometimes a terrible price must be paid to achieve the American Dream."

 
-- Lisa See, author of Shanghai Girls & Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
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