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Wild Prey: Inspector Lu Fe #2    by Brian Klingborg Amazon.com order for
Wild Prey
by Brian Klingborg
Order:  USA  Can
Minotaur, 2022 (2022)
Hardcover, e-Book
* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Wild Prey follows Thief of Souls as the second in Brian Klingborg's mystery series, set in China and starring young, idealistic Inspector Lu Fe. His talent for getting on the wrong side of the powerful has had him assigned to small town Raven Valley near the city of Harbin. There, he carries a torch for Yanyan, owner of the Red Lotus bar.

Before readers see what Lu Fe gets up to, the author shows us a man and his nephew killing a tiger belonging to the Lady in Myanmar - they don't survive the night. Four thousand kilometers north, we join the Inspector as he hunts for Chen, a peddler of black market animal products. Then a teen girl shows up at the station, insisting they find her missing sister.

Meixiang worked as a waitress at a restaurant owned by a gangster and famed for its exotic, illegal specialties. The sister's demand launches Li on a quest, first to Harbin, and later undercover (as a buyer of exotic bushmeat) to Myanmar and the very dangerous domain ruled by the Lady. He does survive (but barely) and finds that things are not at all as they seem.

There's action and violence in spades, but Li manages to learn Meixiang's fate before returning to his 'peaceful life of drinking and chasing wayward chickens.'

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