November 1, 2021
A Chinese American art history major at Harvard, Will Chen passionately believes that art belongs with its creators. So when a Chinese corporation asks him to surreptitiously reclaim five valuable sculptures stolen from China centuries previously, he organizes an all Chinese American crew to execute the heist. They include Will's can-con-anyone sister Irene, at Duke; premed student Daniel, whose FBI agent father specializes in art crimes; engineering student Lily, who races cars in her spare time (handy for getaways); and Alex, Will's former beloved, who found her way to Silicon Valley after dropping out of MIT. A debut from Stanford medical student Li; soon to be a Netflix series.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 28, 2022
Li debuts with an intriguing if uneven twist on the heist genre. Harvard art history student Will Chen witnesses a brazen smash-and-grab at his school’s museum; the thieves make off with objects that were themselves stolen from China centuries before. In the chaos, Will pockets a jade figure. One of the thieves spies his move, calling it a “nice lift,” and slips him the business card of a Chinese business mogul, Wang Yuling, who later recruits Will into the world of art theft. Will soon assembles a group of Chinese Americans in their early 20s, including his younger sister, Irene; and Daniel Liang, who grew up in Beijing and comes primed with knowledge gleaned from his art thief–busting father, who works for the FBI. The inexperienced team agrees to steal five Chinese zodiac fountainhead pieces in exchange for $50 million from Yuling. The first heist, in Sweden, is a success, but during the second theft in France, competition arises when another gang gets to the target first. Li smartly focuses on the bonds created in the group over their shared Chinese roots, though occasionally floundering prose (“The night was dark as an oil spill”) tends to pockmark the page. Like a popcorn movie, this is best enjoyed with a hearty suspension of disbelief. Agent: Hannah Fergesen, KT Literary.
March 15, 2022
A debut novel calls out institutionalized imperialism in the Western world. While working at Harvard's Sackler Museum, Will Chen, a senior majoring in art history, witnesses a robbery of Chinese art. He quickly finds himself caught up in the investigation. The problem: He's actually running the heist. Will and four other Chinese American college students--Will's sister and several acquaintances--have been contracted by China's youngest billionaire, the CEO of a shadowy company called China Poly, to steal five bronze fountainheads from museums around the world and return them to China. These real-life fountainheads were looted from Beijing's Old Summer Palace by the French and British in 1860 during the Second Opium War. The novel's title, therefore, refers to not only the idealistic heisters, but also the art museums that knowingly purchased China's stolen artifacts. If Will and his crew can recover all five pieces, they'll split a $50 million payout. For each, the payout represents a release from the pressures they associate with Chinese diaspora identity: achieving financial success and making a name for themselves. The characters' meditations on the loss and hybridity of their identity--never feeling fully at home in China or America--are spot-on. The problem is that these sections gum up the pace of the thriller. Moreover, Li's characters are so educated, career driven, and emotionally aware that it's hard to believe they would agree to jeopardize their futures by doing the heist in the first place. While restoring the fountainheads to China is ethically sound, why do they buy into this brawn-before-brain method of retribution? The characters themselves admit that most successful art repatriations have come about by orchestrated public outcry. Their nuanced views of their own lives do not extend to China's politics or even the fact that they aren't really working for China but rather for a corporation--China Poly. It's as if the two are one and the same. A compelling portrait of the Chinese diaspora experience that doesn't quite land as either literary fiction or thriller.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
March 15, 2022
Long before the first alarms are triggered here, renowned museums have been legal showcases for artful plunder: Nefertiti's Bust in Berlin's Neues Museum, the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, the Koh-i-Noor in the Tower of London. Li's fascinating albeit uneven debut zeros in on one treasure, China's Old Summer Palace fountain comprised of the Chinese zodiac's dozen animals. Five of the bronze heads are missing. In a Beijing penthouse, five Chinese American college students (one's actually a dropout) get hired by China's youngest billionaire to retrieve the bronzes for a reward of $50-million. Harvard art-history senior Will gets tapped as leader. His "heist crew" couldn't be more promising: his sister Irene (Duke, public policy) as con artist; his best friend Daniel (med school-bound UCLA senior) as thief; his Tinder-hookup Alex (ex-MIT, gone to Google) as hacker; Irene's roommate Lily (Duke, mechanical engineering) as getaway driver. Li composes gracefully, and her polyphonic quintet is especially convincing as each considers motivations, generational debts, hybrid identities, and complicated on-the-cusp adult relationships. The to-be-expected navel-gazing, alas, repeats and lingers, dulling Li's brilliant ending.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.