Second Sister

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Jeremy Tiang, Chan Ho-Kei: Second Sister (2020, Head of Zeus)

512 pages

English language

Published Jan. 6, 2020 by Head of Zeus.

ISBN:
978-1-78854-713-0
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4 stars (1 review)

From the author of the acclaimed novel The Borrowed, a very timely and propulsively plotted tale of cyberbullying and revenge, about a woman on the hunt for the truth about her sister's death.

Chan Ho-Kei's The Borrowed was one of the most acclaimed international crime novels of recent years, a vivid and compelling tale of power, corruption, and the law spanning five decades of the history of Hong Kong. Now he delivers Second Sister, an up-to-the-minute tale of a Darwinian digital city where everyone from tech entrepreneurs to teenagers is struggling for the top.

A schoolgirl – Siu-Man – has committed suicide, leaping from her twenty-second floor window to the pavement below. Siu-Man is an orphan and the librarian older sister who's been raising her refuses to believe there was no foul play – nothing seemed amiss. She contacts a man known only as N. – a hacker, and an …

4 editions

A compelling thriller

4 stars

Chan Ho-Kei's new Hong Kong-based psychological thriller, Second Sister, incorporates an intricate mix of internet hacking and social engineering to propel its narrative. I was reminded at times of the indie novel Social Engineer by Ian Sutherland, although Second Sister is definitely more ambitious in its scope. I appreciated however that Chan always stays in the realms of the plausible. Of course I can't actually say for sure that everything N accomplishes is as easy or quick as it is made to appear - for those in the know anyway - but I never found myself scoffing in disbelief at some outlandish scenario or against-the-clock race. These aspects are what generally put me off reading thrillers so I was pleased not to encounter such overused tropes here. Instead Chan focuses on the humanity and motivations of his characters. No one, to my mind, is particularly likeable, but everyone has such …

Subjects

  • Hong kong (china), fiction
  • Fiction, mystery & detective, general