Arby's cases are usually pretty mundane, but that changes when Lily Shanghai, a beautiful Chinese woman with a dangerous past, wants to hire him to find her younger sister, Biyu, who is missing from a Chinatown sex slave crib. Arby says no. A white guy rummaging through Chinatown would stand out like a sore thumb. He'd get nowhere. What changes his mind is the collateral damage murder of his lover, Ingrid Ventura, by a Chinatown assassin whose real target was Lilly. Arby's single-minded purpose becomes finding the man responsible for Ingy's death and ripping his heart out. His only hope of doing so is to enter Chinatown's underbelly, find Biyu and work from there to Ingy's killer. But Chinatown doesn't give up its secrets so easily, especially those involving the Civil War being waged on the Chinese mainland. When Arby uncovers a clandestine gunrunning operation, not only is he marked for death by Ingy's killer, but the U.S. War Department sets its sights on him. First book of the Arbutus Halethorpe Mystery Series. "The opening of ARBUTUS HALETHORPE AND THE CHINATOWN MURDER is strong and its copious fight scenes and character's banter verge on thrilling... Peake shines in his depictions of the physical confrontations that occur throughout the course of Arby's investigation. These scenes have a throbbing rhythm, with bursts of short, punchy sentences that drive home the character's actions and their consequences..." - IndieReader