I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. "Forensic accountant" and "seafood fraud" weren't subjects that appealed to me personally. But I found this to be a fun, suspenseful page-turner as Ava Lee tracked down the missing money and then attempted to collect it. It reminded me a bit of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because of the competent, capable, deceptively diminutive main female character. I enjoyed the descriptions of the different locations Ava travelled to. The story was a bit slow in some places, when Ava was watching people and waiting for information, but overall this was a fast-paced enjoyable thriller and I look forward to trying more Ava Lee books.

A few pages into the book, I realized that Hamilton was badly in need of an Angela. Fans of the TV series Bones may remember that Temperance Brennan is portrayed as being an author of best-selling fiction. Tempe being Tempe, she is horrible at making her readers actually care about her characters. Enter her friend Angela who reads the early drafts and does that for her. Surely Hamilton knows someone who could do this for his Ava Lee books. In The Disciple, this lack of dimensionality is especially important because the violence Ava is responsible for is horrific. I did not care that the people who were being beat-up, humiliated, and permanently disfigured were bad guys, especially when the only motive for the carnage was recovering big time bucks for Ava’s not very likeable client. If anyone wants to further develop their dislike for capitalism gone wild, this is the book for you. I realized that this might not be the series for me when I started to wonder if Hamilton’s descriptions of far-away places had their roots in travel guides and Google Earth. This was slightly before I started to wonder if Ian Hamilton had any interest in this series beyond its side-deal money making capacity. I’m all for authors making a decent living writing books. Heck, I even want publishers, agents, book stores, and on-line retailers to make a buck, but the books should have some sort of worth beyond their ability to generate loads of money. This is part of a blog post I wrote here:http://nood.thenoodledbrain.com/ian_hamiltons_ava_le/

Has all the makings of a good movie...diminuative woman with incredible strength, various settings exotic and not-so.

Ava Lee is a forensic accountant. She is also a Hong Kong born lesbian who grew up in Canada. Her business partner may or may not be linked to the Triads. She works to find the people responsible for large debts for businesses that can not be collected in any way. And then she convinces the people responsible to give back the money. In this first novel of the series, Ava is out looking for $5,000,000 that has been stolen by a fish packing company from a Hong King investment firm. Her search leads her to Seattle, Thailand and Guyana. And it is there that she gets herself embroiled in local corruption to a point that it threatens her goal to get the money back. And her life. Smart, efficient, calculating and extremely capable of looking after herself, Ava Lee is strong, compelling heroine, one you can't help rooting for, even if you have little in common with her. Author Ian Hamilton has created a compelling heroine and then gives her hard issues to resolve, something the mystery fan loves. This is worth picking up.

Easy read. Keeps you in suspense, but predictable at e same time. Hamilton surely conveys to the reader that Ava Lee is a force no one messes with. Can't wait to read the whole series.

Authors in the House: Join us for coffee as Ian Hamilton reads from his Ava Lee series on Sat March 24th, 2012, 2:00-3:00 pm @ the Strathcona County Library. Register online or call SCL for more information. Discover Ava Lee, Canada’s answer to Lisbeth Salander! Recovering from surgery after a life-threatening health scare, Ian Hamilton sat down at his computer and the captivating Ava Lee leaped into life

This mystery is the first in a new series featuring Ava Lee. Ava is a forensic accountant. She was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in Canada and lives in Toronto. Her work involves tracking down money that has gone missing. Her partner is Uncle Chow, an older man based in Hong Kong that she worked with early in her career and subsequently teamed up with. Ava is a small woman, but highly trained in martial arts, a skill that sometimes comes in handy in her work when traditional methods fail. In this book, Uncle has been approached by an old friend to recover $5 million that has gone missing in a deal with a seafood company. Ava's investigation leads her to Hong Kong, Thailand, Guyana and the British Virgin Islands and into many interesting situations. There are a lot of interesting characters and a fast-moving plot. This is a thriller with a strong female protagonist. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Ian Hamilton will read from The Water Rat of Wanchai and other books in his Ava Lee series at the Alta Vista Library, 2516 Alta Vista Dr on Sat Nov 5th, 2011, 2:00-3:00. Don't miss this chance to meet the author!

Enjoyed the book, but got a little annoyed at the constant mention of her starbucks Via and taking off her Panties...Definetely felt like a man writing for a woman character.

It is fun to read a book that references places in Toronto and even the Chinese restaurants of Richmond Hill. Since I had also been to Bangkok, Hong Kong and Georgetown Guyana I was able to envision the various places that the author had Ava travel. It is a great summer read and I am looking forward to Ava Lee's next assignment.