China White Paperback – April 23, 2016

Most of my previous Peter Maas reads have been non-fiction. "Serpico" is certainly a classic. The only previous Fiction that I have read by him was "Fathers and Sons". I would rate "China White" Higher than "Fathers...". Book is set in NYC and Hong Kong with visits to the Drug Triangle around Laos. Main character is a former prosecutor who has Family ties to Y K Deng, who is the Head of a TRiadthat is bringing "China White" into this country. There are also interlocking characters such as an Ex-Nun who is now an FBI Agent, and an Archeologist who is love with the Daughter of Deng. Reads True-to-life.Only question is 4 or 5 Stars. HOWEVER this is a recommended read.

China White is written by an author whose familiarity with organized crime is well known and readily verifiable. In the beginning of the book his background explanations are too long, so the first quarter of the book moves much slower than a typical novel of this type - but when the novel picks up steam it really snowballs.Aside from the aforementioned overdone background, faults here include an unnecessary love story. Thankfully, the author doesn't spend a lot of time on it, but the book would have been better with a different sort of intrigue between the two characters or none at all. The scene where they make love for the first time was rushed and formulaic, and had all the earmarks of something the author was including because his publisher told him that a sex scene was needed in the book.The book's pluses outweigh the minuses in a big way, though. The slight speed bumps in the book don't take away from the fact that the author knows how to come up with a good story and he has more than enough knowledge of the subject matter to support the story well. His portrayal of the book's antagonist, Y.K. Deng, is masterful.Because of the author's knowledge of organized crime, this is a novel you can actually learn from. Everything in it is realistic, everything is plausible, and chances are that most of it happened. Again, it starts slowly, but it's awfully hard to put down once it begins to roll. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in organized crime, law enforcement and / or Asian culture.

To take such a true and scary real-life situation and write it as an entertaining story - without being either overly draconion or frivolous - is quite a feat.Anyone who has studied Singapore's success in controlling drugs sorely wishes for a bit of intelligent discipline in our own country. Of course the Drug Companies and the top 5% would not like that at all. Today, over 10 years since NAFTA and Peter's book were both launched, illegal immigrants and drugs pore into our Country while jobs pore out. In 2004, there were over 500,000 20' (TEU) sea-going cargo containers brought in from Asia (mostly China)- and those were just the ones brought into America through the port of Long Beach, CA - very few if any were inspected by US authorities. Today, there are tens of millions of containers flowing into our ports as high-profit exports continue to dwindle.A novel built around the loading and distribution of the contents of just one of those containers would make a great sequel to China White.Just as in espionage novels and real life, truth is often stranger (and scarier) than fiction. I think Peter Maas has done a fine job - both as an author and as someone trying to give us a wake-up call about what we are allowing to happen to our Country and our Citizens.John SchulerPortland, Oregon

have read non fiction stuff by maas, so decided to give this novel a try . . . interesting, though not great . . . (i prefer his non fiction stuff). . . but got to listen to cassette tapes of book, so i would recommend it on that basis (though don't know if i would have enjoyed it as much had i actually read it).

The authors past books lend him a lot of credibility with this topic. I found the information about Chinese organized crime to be fascinating, but some of the "love interest" storylines weren't that important to the gist of the story. I would definatley recommend the book.