99 Ways to Die, Paperback

In Taipei, Taiwan, the kidnapping of a Mainlander billionaire throws national media into a tizzy--not least because of the famous victim's vitriolic anti-immigration politics.

Jing-nan has known Peggy Lee, a bullying frenemy who runs her family's huge corporation, since high school. Peggy's father has been kidnapped, and the ransom the kidnappers are demanding is not money but IP: a high-tech memory chip that they want to sell in China.

Jing-nan feels sorry for Peggy until she starts blackmailing him into helping out. Peggy is worried the kidnappers' deadline will pass before the police are able to track down the chip. But when the reluctant Jingnan tries to help, he finds himself deeper and deeper in trouble with some very unsavory characters--the most unsavory of whom might be the victim himself.

Ed Lin is a journalist by training and an all-around stand-up kinda guy. He's the author of the Taipei Night Market series, Ghost Month and Incensed; his literary debut, Waylaid; and his Robert Chow crime series, This Is a Bust, Snakes Can't Run, and One Red Bastard. Lin, who is of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. Lin lives in New York with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.