Customer Reviews

Bad Traffic: A Novel (Inspector Jian)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author's idea of writing a thriller in which the main characters do not speak / have trouble with the language of the place where the action develops is interesting. Especially when considering the tools used to convey this factor: a combination of broken English sentences, even when referring to some of the descriptions, and a need for translation help by other characters. This in turn leads to some funny situations but also to some frustrating ones.

That said, it is clear that some readers will find the style more annoying than rewarding. In my case, there were a couple of instances in which I started to get a little frustrated (this is the main reason why I took away a star) but luckily, the story has several good traits that allowed me to pull out of this state pretty quickly.

Those readers that enjoy fast-paced thrillers, with a combination of mystery, suspense and action will be right at home with this novel. The plot is not overly complex, and some of the surprises are not that hard to anticipate, but the experience is definitely enjoyable. Human trafficking is not a novel topic, but in this book the author uses a particular perspective to make it "taste fresh". Also, the two main characters, a Chinese inspector looking for her daughter and a hopeful peasant coming illegally into the UK, present a nice set of contrasts, which I found helped the story quite a bit.

As mentioned, the only potential drawback has to do with the writing style. However, I am confident that most people will like it or at least be OK with it, and therefore will have a very good time with Lewis' work.

Inspector Ma Jian is an influential Chinese policeman who is also a bit corrupt. One night when he's about to bed his current young mistress he gets a call from his daughter, who he believes is going to college in England. "Help me!" she says, then the line goes dead. Jian doesn't think twice, he gets on a plan and heads to England, even though he doesn't speak a word of English.

Ding Ming is Chinese as well. He wanted to be an English teacher, but somebody who wasn't qualified but was much better connected got the job, So Ding and his wife sell themselves as indentured servants and suffer through a long, arduous journey to England.

When Jian gets to London he's like a fish out of water, but he does manage to get up to Leeds where he finds his daughter had been lying to him, she hadn't been attending school, instead she was working as a waitress and hanging out with a Chinese gangster called Black Fort.

Ding Ming and his wife arrive in England to find it's not the golden mountain they'd been led to believe. They are separated by a snakehead called Black Fort (yes the same Black Fort) and Ding isn't happy. He wants to please his captors, but he want to see his wife, too.

Jian's investigation leads him to Ding and he forces the young man to help him, because he needs his English skills. Ding doesn't want to go along and often tries to thwart Jian, because he thinks if he gives him up to the gangsters, they'll look favorably on him and let him see his wife. Little does he know what's in store for his wife and without Jian he has no hope of ever seeing her again.

Jian and his reluctant sidekick make a great pair as they race through this novel at breakneck speed to an explosive conclusion you won't want to miss. Somehow I got the impression from the story and especially the ending that this is the first of many Inspector Jian novels to come. I hope that's true.

This novel is well reviewed by other readers. I won't bore you with repetition.

BEST PART - The short chapters are appreciated. The chapters break cleanly making it a book that can be read on the run. The writing style is different enough to be interesting.

Seeing the West, England specifically as foreign and alien was quite an experience for me. I've been there so many times it almost seems like home, but it's not home for the two protagonists in Simon Lewis's terrific thriller. It's a forbidding and dangerous place with pitfalls everywhere.

Inspector Jian is a corrupt, arrogant Chinese policeman, who keeps mistresses and lives high on the hog in the People's Republic. He has it made. Then one night he gets a phone call from his daughter Wei Wei, who is studying in England. She cries for help, then he loses the connection and he can't get her back. He gets on the next flight out and as soon as he lands he manages to get a cab to Leeds, where his daughter supposedly was attending university. But she's not there, she'd been lying to him. What had she been up to? He has a hard time finding out, because he doesn't speak a word of English.

Ding Ming is an illegal immigrant. He was smuggled in with his wife and a load of other Chinese, by what we would call coyotes in the American Southwest. These coyotes are Chinese gang members who send the men to work in the fields and the woman to work as prostitutes. However, they've told Ding Ming that his wife and the other women are going to pick flowers. And he believes this. He speaks English, so he is of some value to the gang members and he's going to be very valuable to Inspector Jian.

Although he isn't with his wife, Ding Ming is seems pretty happy to be working for a pittance to pay off his debt to the people who have smuggled him in and it's not till he meets up with Jian that he begins to really doubt what he's gotten himself into, moreover what he's gotten his wife into. Jians need Ding Ming as he speaks English after a fashion and Ding Ming needs Jian, because the man is tough, brutal and will stop at nothing to find his daughter and where she is Ding Ming's wife may also be.

What really makes this a fun read is the interplay between Jian and Ding Ming. Ding Ming is willing to turn Jian into the authorities or the bad guys or whoever if it'll help him in his quest to find his wife. The trust between them at times is zero and other times they really need each other. There are thrills galore here and some comedy too. Now add that with more suspense than you can shake a stick at and an explosive finish and you really have a story.

Inspector Jian is a very interesting character, but the whole language barrier at the beginning (although realistic) made it difficult to sink comfortably into the novel. I was very aware of reading, and how much effort I put into getting through the dense narrative. I missed having dialogue around a lot.

But after the story got up and going, it was smooth sailing. I liked the action and the way. Jian is not the kind of hero I normally root for. Jian has a lot of flaws and even caused his wife's death. His efforts to save his daughter do a lot to redeem him.

Also interesting were the reveals about the Britich and Chinese cultures, especially in conflict with each other.

This crime/thriller had me tunning page after page once I started it.
Partly due to the 3 or 4 page chapters, the non stop twists and action; and partly because it was so fascinating as well as entertaining.

Written from the POV of a Chinese Police officer who can't speak a word of English, searching for his daughter in England, you see the world in a way I suspect most of us have not. You also learn quite a few interesting things about life as lived in China.

My only gripe was the incredible number of beatings the guy took, and each time it seemed he was almost dead, but came back fighting.. a little unbelievable, but the rest was solid.

While it is certainly the case that one doesn't have to be a member of the ethnic/cultural/racial group that one is writing about to do a good job of writing about the particular group (Tony Hillerman's novels are, I think, a good example of this), I think it certainly helps. Granted we are talking about a work of fiction her, but really all works of fiction have an element of truth to them...at least the good ones do. Having said that the writer of this novel isn't Chinese (although it sounds like he has spent a lot of time immersed in Chinese culture), but his characters are and a lot of the novel is a description of the Chinese characters reactions to Western Society/Culture. This being the case, I was scratching my head throughout the novel wondering if this would indeed be their reactions and am I learning anything about the clash between East and West reading this novel. Granted, as I said before this is a work of fiction, nonetheless, I think it overall if detracted from the impact of the novel (I would expect this is a point that many would disagree with me on). Having said that, as far as mystery/thrillers/crime novels go, this was a good read. Oddly enough I found the most interesting character in the book not to be the protagonist Ma Jian, but Ding Ming. And while the Inspectors plight to find his daughter is certainly an agonizing one, I think it pails in comparison to that of Ding Ming's. Overall, I think that this is indeed where the novel really succeeds--i.e., in it's portrayal of the plight of illegal immigrants, be they Chinese of otherwise, and the truly awful circumstances they find themselves in search of a better life. The authors description of the human trafficking is a truly disturbing one; one which gives us a better understanding of the exploitation of illegal immigrants and the perhaps the role we all play in its existence. In that regard, I give the novel 5 stars.

One day a couple weeks ago my husband Ken started reading this book and it seemed like every fifteen minutes or so he'd say something like, "You won't believe how good this book is." Then he'd read me a few passages. Then he'd go back into the book, read a bit, then do it all over again. So, as you can see, he really liked the book. But sadly, he told me most of the story before I started it. So I put off reading it, hoping I'd forget what I knew.

Of course it didn't work, but even knowing the plot, even knowing how it would end, none of that took away from my enjoyment of BAD TRAFFIC. Simon Lewis has written a terrific thriller about a Chinese detective trying to find his daughter in a country where he doesn't speak a word of the language and that really adds to the tension, plus it leaves room for a little humor.

If you ask me, Simon Lewis is destined to be a major star in the thriller/mystery genre. His pacing is about as tight as you can get. His people are real and interesting as all get out. His plotting is superb and his description puts you right in place, whether it's a fish and chips shop or a blazing gunfight in the middle of the night. I can't recommend this book highly enough and I'll most certainly be on the lookout for the next Simon Lewis thriller.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

You just have to hang on for the ride as the characters strive to find their way through confusing and threatening situations and deal with nasty villains and alien bureaucracy. Well written, gripping, a brilliant dance of very different cultures. Rural England and gritty crime through the eyes of desperate men in a new and very strange land. This is a Thriller that reads like some of the best science fiction, rather like what you might get if Neal Gaiman or William Gibson wrote a contemporary crime thriller. Tough Chinese Police Inspector Jian speaks no English but has rushed to England to help his Daughter who is in trouble and finds that she is missing and has been lying to him about her life in England. Ding Ming and his wife have been smuggled into England by human traffickers in hope of finding work and prosperity in the "Gold Mountain". Things go really bad really fast, Ding Ming is separated from his wife by the "Snakeheads" he tries to deal with unexpected situations and demands from the smugglers in order to be allowed to speak with his wife. Both these men struggle to find their way in an alien culture without any guidelines. You see events through the eyes and minds of these two men.
I don't know enough about modern Chinese Culture to know if this is as authentic as it seems but I was unable to put the book down until the very satisfying end.

BAD TRAFFIC, Simon Lewis's debut novel, is a fish-out-of-water story featuring two fish, similarly situated, who find each other and form an odd, disparate bond. Actually, "bond" might not be the right term. It takes them a while to become buddies, and there are some betrayals along the way. In the end, however, they discover that they have more in common than not and that it goes beyond their shared heritage and culture.

Lewis has a unique narrative technique. BAD TRAFFIC consists of nine sections, each of which tells one long story and is further divided into chapters. The first of these sections concerns Inspector Jian, a Chinese cop who is composed of power and corruption in equal measure. Jian is used to getting his way; we know that immediately as he lumbers about the British university that he believed his daughter was attending. He is unable to speak or read English and can find no one who is familiar with Mandarin Chinese. He is also a bully who uses his power to bad ends.

His sole redeeming quality --- at least so it seems at first --- is his love for Wei Wei, his daughter. Jian has left the relative comfort of his home and the potential embrace of a young woman to answer a frantic call for help from Wei Wei. He gets his footing, after a fashion, and begins a painstaking attempt to trace her whereabouts, going from her past residence, where she has not lived in months, to her former employer, where she has not worked in months. When he is finally shown a movie that shows Wei Wei being brutally murdered, he undertakes a thorough, methodical program of revenge, one that causes him to cross paths with an illegal immigrant named Ding Ming.

Ding Ming is introduced in the book's second section. He has come to England with his wife by way of indentured servitude, an arrangement that is stacked so that he has virtually no way of paying it off. Upon landing in England, Ming and his wife are immediately separated and he is put to forced farm labor. Unlike most of the illegal immigrants with whom he is working, Ming has a unique talent: he can speak English.

The common thread that ultimately brings these two very different men together is Black Fort, a despicable "snakehead" (smuggler of illegal aliens) who is responsible not only for the dire straits of Ming but also for the cruel fate of Wei Wei. As Ming and Jian join in an uneasy and easily fractured collaboration, they develop a grudging friendship that, with Jian, also becomes a unique respect for Ming. An innocent abroad, Ming is infused with hope and good faith, and most importantly, an unconquerable love for his wife. He is, however, no one's pushover and will do what he must to achieve his goal.

While there is a mystery at the heart of BAD TRAFFIC, it is ultimately a deep character study, one that is by turns amusing, haunting and satisfying. More will be seen from all, and welcomed.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub