Ian Hamilton's Blog

Chrystia Freeland is a fan of Ava Lee

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Chrystia Freeland, Member of Parliament and candidate for the Liberal Party leadership, has great taste in books—and she’s a fan of Ian Hamilton’s Ava Lee series! In a recent Instagram video, she shared her admiration for the bestselling thrillers. She joins countless readers who have been captivated by Ava Lee’s intelligence, resourcefulness, and unrelenting drive. With sharp storytelling and an unforgettable heroine, Hamilton’s series continues to enthrall audiences around the world. Check out the clip above to see what she had to say!

New Website Launch and more Ava Lee Updates

Welcome to my new web site. It was time for a revamp, and this goes beyond my expectations. I hope you find it informative, easy to access, and simple to use. And I promise to keep it fresh and updated, including doing a monthly blog.

As I write this in mid-May, we are still beset by the Corona virus. It did not impact on my writing schedule, and if anything I have been even more productive than usual during the last three months. I finished editing The Diamond Queen of Singapore, and it will be released as an e-book on May 26, and in paper in August. I finished writing Fortune - the 3rd book in the Uncle series, and it is now with my editor. And, I began the next Ava Lee - The Timber Sultans of Sarawak - and I’m more than 20,000 words into it.

My plans for the Uncle series have changed. Instead of 3 books, I have decided to write a 4th, and have an idea for a 5th. The Ava books will continue at a one a year clip until I can’t write them anymore.

The virus did me impact negatively in that I had to cancel 12 events that were scheduled in April and May. Instead, I’ve been forced to resort to videos. I did one the the Oakville Public Library, and I’ll be live streaming on May 24 via Facebook for a National Arts Center reading program.

Anyway, thank goodness people are still reading.

Ava Lee available in Audiobooks in US

Good news audiophiles! Ava Lee is now available in audio format in the US. Narrated by the talented Jennifer Ikeda, The Disciple of Las Vegas and The Wild Beasts of Wuhan can now be downloaded and enjoyed on your smartphone, tablet or computer. The audio was produced as a digital only title and is sold through various online retailers, including Audible, Barnes and Noble, Downpour and iTunes.

Want to hear a snippet of the audiobook? Head over to Audible and click “Play Audio Sample”.

My Yorkville: a guide by Ava Lee

I know that with its glitz and international corporate residents it may seem strange that I refer to Yorkville as a neighbourhood. But it’s always been one. Originally it was the self-governing Yorkville Village until it was annexed by the City of Toronto in 1883, and it has somehow retained at least some of that charm especially on streets like Scollard and Hazelton where houses as old as the village are crammed side by side and high rise development has been generally spurned.

I live on the north side of Cumberland in what used to be the second building east of Avenue Road. The Four Seasons Hotel was the first until they ripped it down and left nothing but a gaping hole. I liked the Four Seasons, especially during the days when it was the hotel of choice for the movie stars attending the Toronto International Film Festival. Occasionally, the lines of limos and the sidewalks crowded with cameras and gawkers were a bit much, but there were compensations, and for a girl who spends a lot of time in places like Hong Kong and Bangkok, crowded sidewalks are no rarity.

As for the compensations, well I sat next to Kim Basinger at Akusa. Like me, she was by herself – which looking back was rather odd – and the two of us had a little chat until she asked me what movie I was in Toronto to promote. When I said I wasn’t in the business, she lost interest in me.

Akusa, for those of you who don’t know it, is a Japanese restaurant on the north side of Yorkville Avenue, just west of Bellair. It’s on the basement level of a building, and you have to go down steps to get to it from the main street. I’ve been going there for as long as I’ve lived in Yorkville and I’ve never had a bad meal.

My other run in with a star took place at the Dynasty Chinese Restaurant when it was still on Bloor Street on the second floor of the Esplanade. I was there for dim sum with my friend Mimi when a clamour broke out at the entrance. It was Gong Li with an entourage. She sat four tables away from us and I tried hard not to stare too much. She looked absolutely stunning from that distance, and five minutes later I found out she looked stunning from any distance because I bumped into her as I leaving the washroom and she was entering it. I mumbled something worshipful in Mandarin. She just smiled.

When I found out the Dynasty was going to close that location I was quite upset. It was the only Chinese restaurant in easy walking distance that served good dim sum. Then to my delight, I discovered it had moved right into the village and was now on Yorkville Avenue, just west of Bay Street.

I had no such luck when the Cumberland Cinemas closed. They were almost directly across the street from me and – except during TIFF – I could go on a whim a few minutes before screening time and expect to get a good seat for the eclectic mix of mainly independent and foreign films they showed. Now the closest movie house is the ManuLife Center at Bay and Bloor. It’s only a ten minute walk, but the movie selection is more mainstream, and it is always more crowded. Normally when I go there, I include a trip to the LCBO to get some wine, and I always stop in at the Indigo book store. Indigo is large, and is part of a chain, but the service in that store is so terrific that despite its size it feels like a cozy neighborhood operation.

One of my definitions of a neighbourhood is that I can get anything I need within walking distance. And I can. There’s a Whole Foods store on Avenue Road, just five minutes northwest from me, and another five minutes to the east on Bay Street there’s Pusateri Fine Foods. Between the two of them there isn’t any food – except for my Chinese staples like ten pound bags of fragrant rice – that I can’t buy. And next to Pusateri’s, on the corner of Cumberland and Bay, there’s a Starbucks and my supply of VIA instant coffee.

Whenever I go to that Starbucks, I invariably go north to Yorkville Avenue and then east towards Yonge Street to visit the Yorkville Public Library. I don’t know how this gem of a Beaux Arts building has survived. It was built in 1907 with money endowed by Andrew Carnegie. I always stand outside for a few minutes to admire its façade – two pairs of columns, Doric capitals, a bracketed cornice and stone quoins. It reminds me of several buildings on the Bund in Shanghai, but in miniature form.

Thousands of visitors treat Yorkville as a tourist destination. They can’t see past Bloor Street’s Mink Mile, the boutiques, art galleries and antique shops that dot Cumberland, Yorkville and Hazelton Avenues and Scollard Street, and the patio restaurants that pop up like dandelions the moment the outside temperature is bearable. But I have been living in Yorkville for so long now that it I don’t only think of it as the place I live, I think of it as my home and my neighbourhood.

About Ava Lee

Ava Lee is a young Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant who specializes in recovering massive debts that aren’t likely to be recovered through traditional methods. Independent, intelligent, and creative in her methods, Ava does whatever needs doing to get the job done. Ava’s motto is: “people always do the right thing for the wrong reason.” Her challenge is to always find that wrong reason.

Even though she’s petite, it’s a serious mistake to underestimate her physical abilities. She is well trained in martial arts and uses her abilities to get her out of dangerous circumstances. She is also accustomed to working alone, to the point of obsession, which becomes interesting when she is forced to negotiate with powerful and unfamiliar alliances.

When Ava isn’t travelling the world solving crimes, she lives in Toronto’s exclusive Yorkville neighbourhood.

Meet Ian Hamilton, author of the Ava Lee novels, at the Yorkville Library

April 29, 6:30pm


22 Yorkville Ave

Toronto, ON

Free event, everyone is welcome.

For more information, please call 416-393-7660.

NOW Magazine Reviews The Two Sisters of Borneo

NOW Magazine has just reviewed The Two Sisters of Borneo and it’s a good one:

Ian Hamilton’s great new Ava Lee mystery has the same wow factor as its five predecessors. The plot is complex and fast-paced, the writing tight, and its protagonist is one of the most interesting female avengers to come along in a while.

…

If you like your mysteries with a strong travel element, Hamilton doesn’t disappoint. His locations are rich in detail, and his description of the huge Hong Kong wedding that opens the book is worthy of an anthropologist.

Check out the full review on nowtoronto.com.

Ava Lee ebook: The Dragon Head of Hong Kong – Part IV

From the desk of Ian Hamilton

At the root of any business partnership is trust.

You don’t need friendship—in fact, that can get in the way of getting things done­—but partners have to believe that they are working towards the same end and that they have each other’s backs covered.

When trust erodes, the dissolution of the partnership isn’t far behind and no amount of legal paperwork, or complicated agreements, can really put it back together again.

The Chinese may not understand this better than anyone else, but in practice the emphasis they place on relationships is more important than legal mumbo jumbo. The question is always the same. Do I trust someone enough to become their partner? If the answer is no, then ultimately no amount of legal boiler plating will make things work. If yes, then you can almost skip the paperwork.

As simplistic as that seems, it forms part of Ava’s ethos. A verbal agreement and a handshake, or in the case of May Ling, a hug, are more binding than two hundred pages of legalese.

I hope you all enjoyed reading The Dragon Head of Hong Kong as much as I enjoyed writing it. It brought me great joy, and — although I didn’t think it was possible — it brought me even closer to Ava and Uncle.

The Two Sisters of Borneo is the next book in the series. It will be available in early February and I take great pride in it.

I would like to thank everyone who registered for the prequel. Now you have the complete novella. You can tell anyone who didn’t register that The Dragon Head will be available — at a modest cost — through Kobo, Kindle, iBooks and Sony Reader starting on December 17. For paper book fans, it will be printed in January as an add-on to the reprint of The Water Rat of Wanchai.

I want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and an amazing 2014.

— Ian Hamilton

Ava Lee ebook: The Dragon Head of Hong Kong – Part III

From the desk of Ian Hamilton

Exporting to China in the l990s was not for the faint of heart. Getting products there was the easy part. Getting paid was a tad more difficult.

In an ideal world, you would have demanded to be paid in advance. Except that didn’t happen unless you were Chinese and your first cousin was a senior military officer or the mayor of a large city or ran a bank.

That left the ordinary exporter to rely on international trade and banking regulations. Within North America, and between here and Europe, that wasn’t particularly demanding. Letters of Credit – issued bank to bank – covered most contingencies.  In essence, one bank committed to pay another if the conditions in the LC were met – and the conditions were typically minimal, i.e prove that the goods that were ordered were actually delivered.

In China, the problems started with the banks. Some of them operated  on whimsy. A Letter of Credit, which was supposed to be a binding legal document, could be refused to be paid for reasons that had nothing to do with the conditions that were set.  In one case, I know a company who was stuck because the Chinese bank said the officer who had signed the LC on their behalf wasn’t properly authorized to do so. Or so they claimed. Then what to do? Take the importer and/or the bank to court? Good luck with that in a legal system that was political and xenophobic.

No wonder businesses like Uncle’s were necessary.

— Ian Hamilton

Ava Lee ebook: The Dragon Head of Hong Kong – Part II

From the desk of Ian Hamilton

It is difficult for westerners to really comprehend the rate of growth in a country like China, and a city like Shenzhen is so far removed from our experiece that it could exist on a different planet.

Thirty years ago, Shenzhen had a population of less than a hundred thousand people living in a collection of fishing villages and farms in an area that abutted Hong Kong’s New Territories. Then Premier Deng anointed it as the first Special Economic Zone and the villages and farms were swept aside in a mad rush to build. Today, it is estimated that about 14 million people live there.

That number of 14 million is staggering enough, but try to visualize the construction that had to happen so that many people could be housed, serviced and employed. How many building permits did that entail? Probably more in a week than Toronto would issue in a year. And they would have been instant, not encumbered by bureaucracy.

I mention the building permit issue facetiously because in Shenzhen there was no pretense about regulatory control. Want to throw up a factory? Pay the right person and get permission. Want to build it faster than the competition? Pay more people. The mayors in Chinese cities aren’t elected. They are appointed by the Party and have tremendous, almost unbridled power. There aren’t many of them who don’t quickly become multi-millionaires.

Ava knows none of this before she heads for Shenzhen. The word guanxi is not part of her vocabulary. It will be soon enough.

— Ian Hamilton

Ava Lee ebook: The Dragon Head of Hong Kong - Part I

One of the joys of writing the Ava Lee series is visiting with old friends. There are more than fifteen recurring characters across the span of the books, and in The Dragon Head of Hong Kong six of them make their first appearance.

Given Ava's age and her lack of experience, her relationships with the six are different than what they will become over the next ten years, but as they meet and then interact with her, you can see glimpses of the formidable woman she'll become, and you have a sense of why she is able to generate such a sense of trust and loyalty in others.

One part of Ava's personality I find particularly appealing is her ability to see and accept other people for what they are. Despite a relatively privileged upbringing, she is no snob. This trait has been passed along from Jennie Lee, who believes that everyone's work and status in life is worthy of respect. Ava's success in her career is partially rooted in her ability to get people to communicate with her, and their willingness to do that, I think, is a response to the sincerity she displays towards them.

In The Dragon Head of Hong Kong, working in a strange country, and in circumstances completely foreign to her, Ava is forced to resort to her own wiles and the life lessons of Jennie Lee in order to succeed. Will they be enough?

— Ian Hamilton

Ava Lee ebook: The Dragon Head of Hong Kong – Part I

One of the joys of writing the Ava Lee series is visiting with old friends. There are more than fifteen recurring characters across the span of the books, and in The Dragon Head of Hong Kong six of them make their first appearance.

Given Ava’s age and her lack of experience, her relationships with the six are different than what they will become over the next ten years, but as they meet and then interact with her, you can see glimpses of the formidable woman she’ll become, and you have a sense of why she is able to generate such a sense of trust and loyalty in others.

One part of Ava’s personality I find particularly appealing is her ability to see and accept other people for what they are. Despite a relatively privileged upbringing, she is no snob. This trait has been passed along from Jennie Lee, who believes that everyone’s work and status in life is worthy of respect. Ava’s success in her career is partially rooted in her ability to get people to communicate with her, and their willingness to do that, I think, is a response to the sincerity she displays towards them.

In The Dragon Head of Hong Kong, working in a strange country, and in circumstances completely foreign to her, Ava is forced to resort to her own wiles and the life lessons of Jennie Lee in order to succeed. Will they be enough?

— Ian Hamilton