The Wild Beasts of Wuhan

Starred review from May 6, 2013
An intelligent kick-ass heroine anchors Canadian author Hamilton’s excellent third novel featuring forensic accountant Ava Lee (after 2012’s The Disciple of Las Vegas). Uncle, her business partner for more than a decade, summons Ava, a Canadian of Chinese descent who makes her living by chasing bad debts, to Hong Kong to meet with the most powerful man in China’s Hubei province, Wong Changxing. Wong has just learned that 17 Fauvist paintings he collected over the years from the French art movement are apparently fakes. Irate at having been cheated out of $80 million, Wong and his wife, May Ling, want Ava to find those responsible for the fraud and “make them pay in some other way” than financial restitution. Ava’s skeptical that she can do so, but begins a globetrotting series of inquiries to try. Clearly conversant with the art world, Hamilton makes the intricacies of forgery as interesting as a Ponzi scheme.