Hot Poppies

Hot Poppies Review

A murder in New York's diamond district. A dead Chinese girl with a photograph in her pocket. A plastic bag of irradiated heroin on the mantelpiece in an apartment. A millennial fire in a sweatshop in the city's swarming Chinatown.

These are the events that conspire to bring ex-cop Artie Cohen out of retirement and back into the obsessive world of murder and politics that nearly killed him in Red Hot Blues. These are the events that fall into place just as Artie begins opening up his life to Lily, a red-haired reporter who shares his passion for food and jazz. In spite of himself, Artie is back in the game, one that is even deadlier than the last, because the trade is human beings--the booming business at the end of the twentieth century is illegal immigrants: girls are bought for wage slaves or marriage, and babies are bought and sold and sometimes left to die.

The terrifying plot uncoils first in New York, in Artie's own backyard, then, as he follows its threads, in Hong Kong, site of the last grab bag on earth, where everything--and everyone--is for sale.