Forget it, Jake. It's China.

After resigning from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, MEI WANG opens a detective agency in Beijing., much to her family's dismay in this new series from former Chinese dissident Diane Wei Liang.

Ditching a good government job to become a gumshoe in modern day China is definitely a step down the social scale -- especially since private detectives aren't exactly legal. Her rather eccentric family certainly isn't impressed, and it doesn't help that her sister is a popular TV star or that her mother is extremely status-conscious. But Mei turns out to be a savvy -- if quirky -- investigator, sharp and intuitive, with plenty of contacts (and even a few friends) among the local police and the government.

Which is how she's able to swing an office, complete with a male receptionist, and even a car.

The author's insder knowledge of such a unique setting and her offbeat but solid mysteries should appeal to fans of Alexander McCall Smith Precious Ramotswe or Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs, who ought to find many plenty to like in this similarly engaging and original series.

Diane Wei Liang was born in Beijing and spent part of her childhoodin a labor camp in a remote region of China. In 1989 she took part in a Student Democracy Movement protest in Tiananmen Square. Diane is a graduate of Peking University. She has a Ph.D. in business administration from Carnegie Mellon University and was a professor of business in the U.S. and the U.K. for more than ten years. She now writes full-time and lives in London.