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    Year of the Tiger
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    Year of the Tiger
    Unavailable
    Year of the Tiger
    Ebook388 pages8 hours

    Year of the Tiger

    By Lisa Brackman

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    An electrifying thriller debut set in modern China, in a world of artists, paranoid revolutionaries and government conspiracies…

    First she tried to start over. Now she’s just trying to survive.

    ON HER OWN

    Ellie Cooper’s tour of duty in Iraq left her with a damaged leg, a faithless husband, and a desperate need to get away. In Beijing, she falls for charismatic Chinese artist Lao Zhang but, after the arrival of a mysterious guest, he disappears…

    ON THE RUN

    Her cheating husband, Trey, tracks her down to demand a divorce. But far more disturbing are the Chinese and American agents who begin to hound Ellie for Lao Zhang’s whereabouts.

    AND A LONG WAY FROM HOME

    When things suddenly turn threatening, Ellie turns fugitive, convinced there’s a hidden agenda – one that involves something she should never have seen in Iraq – something that could get her killed. Now she’s alone, in a country she barely knows, falling down a rabbit hole of conspiracies from which she can’t escape…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateMar 29, 2012
    ISBN9780007453207
    Unavailable
    Year of the Tiger
    Author

    Lisa Brackman

    Lisa Brackmann is the critically acclaimed author of the Ellie McEnroe novels set in China (Rock Paper Tiger, Hour of the Rat, Dragon Day) and the thriller Getaway. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal and CNET. She lives in San Diego with a couple of cats, far too many books and a bass ukulele

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    Reviews for Year of the Tiger

    3.5/5

    40 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A new release of a Higgins offering written in the 60's. The book has a newly written beginning and ending which are set in modern times (or at least modern when rereleased in the 90's).Paul Chavasse is back, this time he is sent to the frozen lands of Tibet. After rescuing the Dalai Lama he is requested to re-enter the country in order to bring back vital information that could help the west in the space race. This information comes in the form of a Doctor Hoffner who has shunned fame and fortune in order to help local villagers in their health and also their battle against the Chinese. The militants are headed by the very formidable Captain Li who will stop at nothing, including torture to get what he wants.An excellent read with a few twists and turns, alongside the action Higgins is famed for.
    • 1/5
      The story of a british agent during the cold war. Written like a short story, I didn't find this very interesting.
    • 4/5
      In her debut novel Rock Paper Tiger, Lisa Brackman gives us Ellie McEnroe Cooper who narrates the story which includes her time spent serving in Iraq as an Army Medic, her marriage to Trey Cooper, another soldier, and her current, somewhat drifting life in China where she's become friends (maybe more) with Lao Zhang, a painter and artist with knack for building communities, even when his government isn't fully in support of so many people gathering together.Brackman doesn't waste a lot of time on backstory. The action starts quickly when Lao Zhang hosts a "friend of a friend"in his home in Mati Village. That "friend of a friend" turns out to be a Uigher, a Chinese Muslim, with possible terrorist connections. It doesn't take long for the authorities to come calling, but which authorities are they?What happens next sets Ellie on a journey of both international and domestic U.S. intrigue and, more importantly, an opportunity to examine the motives, past and present, in her relationships. While she deals with a dangerous and frightening present, she must also face a disturbing past.Brackman has set out to give us a character who is very human in her weaknesses, but who also finds inner strength she didn't know she possessed. While her younger self may have been more willing to be tossed along the currents of greater forces, she eventually learns that the only person she can trust in this situation is herself. She must do the right thing not only to save herself, but also to protect those for whom she cares. Brackman has developed her characters with a keen eye for detail. She captures them visually as well as through a snappy dialog that rings true. Ellie speaks just as you'd expect her to. That makes her both believable and someone with whom I can empathize. Scattering the backstory masterfully into the present action, Brackman lets the reader see into Ellie's interior life.While I've neither studied nor visited China, I felt as though I was there. Brackman's descriptions were detailed and thorough without making me want her to hurry along with the story telling. The place is a large part of the story and Brackman's descriptions of modern day China made that part of the story come alive.The suspense built in an arc that kept me reading and while I did put the book down a few times, that was not because of the writing or the story. It was because I decided to read this book just about the time things in my own life started to shift and I had to deal with other priorities.By leaving open a couple of story threads, it seems possible that Brackman might want to write more about Ellie. She's a character that I came to like, to care about and I would happy to read what other kinds of adventures might befall her in the future.
    • 4/5
      Ellie/Lili was a medic who served in Iraq and then decommissioned after an injury from a bombing. She had moved to Beijing with her husband Trey after he left the military for a job in a security company but the marraige quickly broke down when she discovered he was cheating on her. Ellie is sharing a flat and has a friend and sometime lover who is an artist. She's suffering from post traumatic stress and seems barely able to look after herself at times. She goes to visit her artist friend and meets a stranger there. Within days, her friend has left town and there are big bad men coming after her to find out what she knows about the stranger. She discovers that the American government want the man, believing he's a potential terrorist and then it seems like the Chinese government are after her friend but I'm not quite sure why. He's not a political activist but it could be because of his association with this other person. Ellie ends up being chased by both factions, the Chinese government/police and the American security faction. Both of them are pretty scary and threatening and she ends up on the run from one end of China to another but isn't able to escape. They all seem to be able to know exactly where she is all the time and one or the other appear in coffee shops, on deserted roads, on trains. It's a bit baffling. It also ends a bit abruptly. Ellie isn't able to get any useful information and keeps having encounters with strangers and allowing herself to be drawn into dangerous situations, even though she doesn't trust anyone she meets. It almost seems like she just doesn't care what happens to her and takes the risk anyway. This appears to be related to the post traumatic stress and we do get flashbacks to her time in Iraq to find out more about how all that came about and how it affected her so her motivations seem more understandable. Who can she trust? Some people that seem to be scary could actually be on her side but it gets a bit confusing at times. All that being said, i did like the book. Ellie was flawed and broken but you knew why. I wasn't quite as keen on all the things that happened to her. It just seemed like too much, too threatening, and then a twist would be thrown in just to add to the confusion. Maybe the reader is meant to feel as unsettled and confused as Ellie was so if that was the case, it worked!
    • 5/5
      Although this reads like a dystopian thriller set in an alternative reality, it actually takes place in the polluted big cities, scenic small villages, computer gaming communities, artist hangouts, and dissident networks of modern China, with flashbacks to Ellie McEnroe’s days as a nineteen year old medic during the Iraq War when she saw things that weren’t meant for her eyes, things that shouldn’t have happened and continue to haunt her. She has a war wound that still gives her pain and a husband who brought her to China but left her, so she’s stumbling through her days and drinking too much, but when thuggish, scary officials start pursuing her after her sometime boyfriend disappears, leaving behind only a cryptic note asking her to manage his artwork, Ellie has to get her act together enough to get out of Beijing and figure out what to do. The detailed, colorful, behind-the-scenes glimpses of life in modern China are both fascinating and transporting, really setting this book apart, and Ellie’s wry wit, sense of duty, and impulsive bravery in spite of her damaged body and soul make his fast-paced suspenseful novel a joy to read.
    • 4/5
      this book is like taking a trip through China without frills.From P. Pen, "Ellie Cooper,a veteran of the war in Iraq, is down and out in Beijing whena chance encounter with an Uighur—a member of a ChineseMuslim minority—at the home of her sort-of boyfriend LaoZhang turns her life upside down. Lao Zhang disappears, andsuddenly multiple security agencies are hounding her forinformation. They say the Uighur is a terrorist. How can Elliedecide whom to trust among the artists, dealers, collectors, andoperatives claiming to be on her side—in particular, a mysteriousorganization operating within a popular online role-playing game.As she tries to elude her pursuers, she’s haunted by memories ofIraq. Is what she did and saw there at the root of the mess she’sin now? “A terrifying odyssey in present-day China…with theprotagonist pursued by the Chinese and American governmentsalike in a global panorama. A totally captivating page-turner withvivid, first-hand details and nuanced multi-cultural facets.”—QiuXiaolong. This edgy debut, a First Mystery Club Pick,"
    • 4/5
      A good international crime story introduces the reader to Ellie Cooper, an Iraq vet who has moved to Beijing with her husband who is working for a military contractor. Separated from her husband who has fallen in love with a Chinese woman, Lisa survives by working in an ex-pat bar. She hangs around with the new artists often crashing at the apartment of a painter. With flashbacks to her military life and her unexpected involvement in the disappearance of her painter friend, we learn the toughness of this military medic. I didn’t particularly like the ending, but for me crime books are often contrived anyway. Still a good read with lots of action and an introduction to life in other countries.
    • 5/5
      Books that try to hit a number of Important Issues of the Day usually get on my nerves, but this one didn't, even thought its pages contain more of them than the average copy of the New York Times. I think the Chinese setting with a non-Chinese narrator helped out with that some, although really I can't put my finger on it. I just enjoyed the hell out of this book.
    • 4/5
      Ellie is a troubled Iraqi War vet whose been relocated by her husband's job to China. This book gives an interesting perspective on Modern China, and I learned a lot about the country. The book is very intriguing and I found myself not being able to put it down.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the intimate picture of China that I got from this, but in the end it was a little disappointing.
    • 2/5
      I chose this book at the library on impulse, because I've been wanting to read more novels set in post-Cultural Revolution China, especially as my workplace prepares for a gallery of artwork by contemporary Chinese artists. Since Lisa Brackmann traveled extensively in China (according to the author's note), I trusted that her depiction wouldn't be completely fictional, and the inclusion of Chinese artists in the plot was appealing.Unfortunately, I am not well-versed in the types of cover-blurbs that thrillers receive, so I wasn't properly prepared for that aspect of Rock Paper Tiger, though I did expect a decent mystery. I was also unprepared for the detailed depictions of the Army base in Iraq, though I expected some references and flashbacks, since the main character is described as having PTSD from the war in the cover blurb.Thus, ultimately, though I found many aspects of the book appealing and interesting, it really wasn't right for me. I stopped reading halfway through, after a chapter that described the torture of Iraqi prisoners in the Army camp, which was pretty similar to the types of things I've heard happened in Abu Ghraib (I tried to avoid details, because I knew it would turn my stomach). I desperately wanted to not read any more scenes like that, so I stopped reading rather than risk anything else. But it wasn't just those scenes that made the book inappropriate for me - I was also very uncomfortable with the way Ellie is drinking heavily in almost every scene that isn't a flashback to her time in Iraq, and then there were also scenes of sexual harassment and assault that, when combined with the other uncomfortable (for me) parts, were just a bit too much.The mystery part was compelling, and I was really interested in the way Brackmann used an Internet game to advance it - perhaps it's a cliché thing in the realm of thrillers, but it was novel for me, and kind of fun since I used to be involved with big MMORPGs myself. I also did like the descriptions of China, Beijing, and Chinese life. Although I can't say how authentic they are, it felt real enough compared to the nonfiction I have read.Since I was unable to finish the novel, I can't say whether, as a whole, it's a good read or just mediocre, but I can say that it's not something I'd recommend to just anyone, due to the graphic depictions of the treatment of PUCs in Iraq.