First published in Canada in 2011; published by Picador on May 6, 2014
A forensic accountant is an unlikely thriller hero, but Ava Lee is an unlikely forensic accountant. Ava is a Chinese-Canadian who is as adept with martial arts as she is with a calculator. She's more of a debt collector/skip-tracer than she is an accountant. This is, however, a big league version of debt collection.
Ava's current task is the collection of $5 million stolen from a company that financed a seafood supplier. Her travels take her to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Trinidad, Guyana, and the British Virgin Islands. None of the locales gave me the sense of seeing anything that a tourist wouldn't see, but I did get the impression that Ian Hamilton has actually been to those places. A resident's view of the countries is unnecessary as Ava has a tourist's perspective, including an obsessive concern with the amenities available at hotels, as well as their star ratings. Needless to say, Guyana disappoints her. That crime-ridden location nevertheless gives her a chance to show off her formidable fighting skills. At the same time, the story's violence is kept to a necessary minimum. This is more of a cerebral thriller than an action novel, although the action moves at a brisk pace.
Ava is my kind of thriller hero. She's intelligent, resourceful, cunning, a woman of action who thinks before she acts. She gets things done and doesn't monkey around on her way to her goal. Much the same can be said of Hamilton, who writes with certitude, reaching his goal with a minimum of fuss. This is a tightly constructed story that doesn't waste a word. That is a skill that has become increasingly rare among modern thriller writers. The story avoids overreaching and is easy to believe, another rarity in modern thrillers.
In addition to highlighting the corruption that is endemic in less developed countries, Hamilton adds color to the story with Ava's domineering mother and her inscrutable business partner, Mr. Chow. But it is Ava who makes the story work, and she makes it work well. Originally published in Canada in 2011, this is the first novel in the Ava Lee series. It has encouraged me to read the rest of them.
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