The Jasmine Trade: A Novel of Suspense Introducing Eve Diamond [Hardcover]

Denise Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2001

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 opensa rare window to an intriguing subject, "The Jasmine Trade" is a passionate and polished debut from an exciting new author.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When a young Chinese bride-to-be is found dead at the wheel of her Lexus at the start of this solid debut thriller, plucky Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond's compulsive curiosity and professional instinct for good copy lead her into the unfamiliar and intersecting worlds of Asian gangs and Southern California's "parachute kids," wealthy Asian teens living unsupervised in San Marino mansions while their parents manage businesses on the other side of the Pacific. By quickly befriending a parachute kid "dancing with the dragon" of gang membership and just as swiftly falling in love with Mark Furukawa, a counselor for troubled teens, Eve ensures herself a role in the investigation that is both complicated and personal. Add in the murdered girl's secret diary, her shady fianc‚, a corrupt bank, a racist cop and the "jasmine trade" (smuggling girls out of Chinese provinces and forcing them into prostitution), and it's not surprising that Eve's entanglement in the case becomes life threatening. First-time novelist Hamilton, herself a former L.A. Times scribe, might be accused of "dancing with the dragon" of common mystery novel tropes, but she, unlike many of her characters, escapes essentially unscathed. In addition to a gripping story and keen observations about contemporary Los Angeles, she also offers an undeniably winning narrator: intelligent, impulsive Eve is sharp on the outside and vulnerable on the inside, willing to cogitate with equal intensity on issues private (a lost love, a dead brother) and public (racial and socioeconomic politics, "the media's scorching glare"). And Hamilton hints, ever so gently, that her heroine might return.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Journalist Eve Diamond knows the problems of contemporary teens, having reported on them for the Los Angeles Times. But when she follows up on a story about 17-year-old Marina Chang, found murdered in her car, she runs across a term she's never heard before: "parachute kids." With a little digging and some help from a good-looking social worker, she learns about a disturbing teen subculture: rich Asian immigrant kids who are living virtually on their own while their parents remain in China or elsewhere to run the family business. Of course, it's too late to save Marina, but Eve is determined to do her best to save another "parachute kid" at risk. This is Hamilton's first novel, and it shows a little: everything comes together too easily in the end, and the climax seems stagey and overplayed, like a gunfight in an old western movie. What does work--and work very well--is the author's thoughtful, eye-opening look at a new version of a destructive, ongoing social evil: kids joining gangs to find family. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (July 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074321269X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743212694
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,606,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Denise Hamilton writes crime novels and is editor of Los Angeles Noir, an anthology of new writing that spent two months on bestseller lists, won the Edgar Award for "Best Short Story" and the Southern California Independent Booksellers' award for "Best Mystery of the Year."

Denise also edited Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, with stories by Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, Chester Himes, Ross Macdonald, Margaret Millar and others.

Denise's new novel, Damage Control, will be published by Scribner on September 6, 2011 and has already received raves from Kirkus (In a novel that marries celebrity culture, surf noir and the bonds of friendship, Hamilton is at the top of her game) and James Ellroy (A superb psychological thriller). She has five books in the Eve Diamond series and her standalone book "The Last Embrace," set in 1949 Hollywood, was compared to Raymond Chandler.

Denise's books have been shortlisted for the Edgar, Macavity, Anthony and Willa Cather awards. Her debut "The Jasmine Trade" was a finalist for the prestigious Creasey Dagger Award given by the UK Crime Writers Assn. Hamilton's books have been BookSense 76 picks, USA Today Summer Picks and "Best Books of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Toronto Globe & Mail.

Prior to writing novels, Hamilton was a Los Angeles Times staff writer. Her award-winning stories have also appeared in Wired, Cosmopolitan, Der Spiegel and New Times. She covered the collapse of Communism and was a Fulbright Scholar in Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War. Hamilton lives in the Los Angeles suburbs with her husband and two boys.

She also writes a perfume column for the Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Intelligent and Gripping Debut....., November 16, 2001

By 

Roz Levine - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jasmine Trade: A Novel of Suspense Introducing Eve Diamond (Hardcover)

Los Angeles Times reporter, Eve Diamond, thought it was just another suburban carjacking gone wrong. Seventeen year old Marina Lu, on her way to order bridesmaid dresses for her upcoming wedding, was now lying dead in the shopping center parking lot, shot in the head. But as Eve looks first into the death, and then the life of this teenager, whose existence was filled with all the advantages that money, status and the upper class provided, she begins to discover that all was not as it seemed. The more she investigates, the deeper she plunges into the desperate lives of rich parachute kids, teenagers left alone in America to fend for themselves while their parents live and run lucrative businesses from Hong Kong, Asian gangs, and the "jasmine trade", smuggled immigrant Asians brought to America, and sold into prostitution. What started as just a sad, local crime story, has now turned into a deadly mission, and Eve vows to find the truth, no matter what the cost..... Turn off the phone and lock the door, Denise Hamilton's debut novel, The Jasime Trade, is about to keep you up reading, all night. This is an intricate thriller that grabs you from page one and never lets go. The plot is tight, tense and compelling, with vivid and riveting scenes that set you on the edge of your seat, and keeps you there. The writing is intelligent, crisp, and spare, and her well drawn characters, original, engaging and very believable. Complex and intriguing, Eve Diamond, is definitely one of the best new leading ladies, or men, to pop up on the mystery/thriller scene this year. It is obvious that Ms Hamilton did her homework, and her indepth knowledge of Los Angeles and the Asian community transports the reader to another world, and adds real credibility to the story. With a stunning climax and satisfying ending that ties up all the loose ends, The Jasmine Trade is hopefully the beginning of a marvelous new series starring a remarkable heroine, that shouldn't be missed. Be sure and put this novel at the top of your "must read" list!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a plucky heroine & a haunting storyline: definitely a winner, September 18, 2001

By 

tregatt (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jasmine Trade: A Novel of Suspense Introducing Eve Diamond (Hardcover)

"The Jasmine Trade" by Denise Hamilton is a wonderfully engaging and readable first novel that introduces you to the twilight world of the disenfranchised rich teenage Asian immigrants in Los Angeles. It's haunting and gripping, and is a read that should not be missed!

While covering the carjacking-gone-wrong murder of 17 year old Marina Lu, Los Angeles reporter Eve Diamond, fortuitously uncovers a subculture she had little knowledge of: the parachute kids. These are the young teenage children of recent well to do Asian immigrants, who are living in this country with little or no parental supervision. While the parents are jetting all over the world for business reasons, the kids are expected to go to school regularly, get good grades, and lead exemplary lives. Of course, left to their own resources, the kids usually drift, and frequently into gangs. Eve smells a really good story here, and an award winning one at that. Through her contacts with the school board, and the Rainbow Coalition Center, Eve manages to talk to one of these 'parachute kids' and unexpectedly stumbles onto the diary of Marina Lu. Reading bits of the diary, Eve discovers that Marina believed that her much older fiance was two-timing her, and had resolved to discover the truth. Now, Eve cannot help but wonder if Marina's death was actually a murder made to look like a carjacking gone wrong. However before she can read Marina's diary properly from beginning to end, her car is broken into, and all her notes and Marina's diary is stolen. Was this a 'real' robbery or was recovering Marina's diary the primary objective? Suddenly Eve's world seems a lot darker. Why would the diary of a 17 year old be of any importance to anyone, unless it contained something really damaging to someone? And how did this person know that Eve had Marina's diary? Conscious of the fact that she may be in danger, Eve nonetheless refuses to give up her investigation into Marina's death, even if it means putting herself directly into harms' way. What Eve's eventually uncovers will haunt her and change her forever.

"The Jasmine Trade" is a really great read. And although for the first half of the book, the plot looks as if it is teetering a little between the subplots that dealt with Marina's death and her obsessive need to know what her fiance was up to, and the parachute kids, everything does come together, so that sticking it out really does pay off! Eve Diamond is a truly plucky and engaging heroine; her character makeup, equal parts investigative zeal to discover what really happened and to deliver some much needed justice, and her own inner sense of self loathing for all the manipulation she exercises in order to get a story, makes Eve really accessible to the reader. I also liked the manner in which Denise Hamilton intersperses bits about Eve's past with the present, so that we get to better understand Eve's character, and what motivates her. The storyline was an intriguing and riverting one, and Denise Hamilton's prose style was fresh and breezy, thus making this novel easy reading. I really enjoyed "The Jasmine Trade" and have no problem recommending it as an excellent read.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, sexy noir novel by a journalist who knows the real LA, July 21, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Jasmine Trade: A Novel of Suspense Introducing Eve Diamond (Hardcover)

It would be a pity if The Jasmine Trade ends up relegated to the mystery shelves of specialty bookstores. Author Hamilton gives us much more than a well-plotted mystery involving murder, Asian gangs and an intrepid heroine/investigator. The book is anchored in a vivid world of cops, organized criminals, reporters and rich "parachute kids," (teenagers left to fend for themselves by parents who have installed them in leafy neighborhoods while they pursue their own business interests in Hong Kong and elsewhere). Interwoven into the scenes of crime, sex and telltale clues, The Jasmine Trade offers the reader an accurate picture of modern life in LA, in all of its countless contradictions. It's a juicy well-informed peek into the corners of a sprawling metropolis that rarely gets represented so richly in contemporary fiction.

If one is looking for the done-to-death stereotype of LA as a Jackie Collins-type universe populated by Hollywood agents and cosmetically altered actresses who romp through pastel-colored mansions and in-spot restaurants, one will not find it here. Hamilton gives us something much better, fresher and more literary with this debut novel. An experienced reporter, she proves herself here to also be an artful fiction writer. From the first page, we are aware we're in the hands of a self-assured guide. We enter worlds we rarely get to see. The Jasmine Trade is arguably a mystery/thriller, yes, but one that has greater literary ambitions than a formulaic whodunit. What distinguishes this book is the author's passion and conversance with the city's quirkier neighborhoods, newsroom antics, pop cultural landmarks, immigrant customs, and the relentless culture clashes - large and small, humorous and dangerous -- that make LA so maddening, so interesting, absurd and so vastly misunderstood.

Like the author herself, Hamilton's protagonist, Eve Diamond, is a journalist. Diamond is an appealing and plucky character with a working class sensibility and a healthy dose of skepticism. Her brashness and vulnerability make her credible. Her observations about her hometown and its inhabitants are funny, intelligent and dead-on. Much of the pleasure in reading this book comes from the delight in accompanying Hamilton's main character as she navigates through a kaleidoscopic landscape rich in tension, vivid characters, suspense, atmosphere, and always, always, freeways.