cover image The Ghost Shift

The Ghost Shift

John Gapper. Ballantine, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-345-52792-9

In Gapper’s uneven thriller set in contemporary Guangdong, China, 23-year-old police detective Song Mei investigates the suspicious death of a young woman who worked at Long Tan Technology, which makes smartphones and tablets for an Apple-like company. Mei is shocked to discover that the victim is her twin sister, whose existence she was unaware of. The complex, confusing backstory reveals that both girls were abandoned at birth and that Mei was adopted by American parents. Gapper (The Fatal Debt) takes his time building to the main action, which involves Mei infiltrating Long Tan to find out what happened to her twin and what’s going on in the factory, particularly the super-secretive “ghost shift” of the title. At this point, the narrative becomes palpably and cinematically suspenseful, and the reader gets a compelling portrait of industrialized China. But the thrills of this well-written, often intelligent book are just too slow in coming. Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects. (Jan.)