Vendor
	Liepman Literary Agency Marc Koralnik

SECOND SISTER

Chan Ho-kei

From the author of the acclaimed novel The Borrowed, a very timely and propulsively plotted tale of cyberbullying and revenge, about a woman on the hunt for the truth about her sister's death.

Chan Ho-Kei's The Borrowed was one of the most acclaimed international crime novels of recent years, a vivid and compelling tale of power, corruption, and the law spanning five decades of the history of Hong Kong. Now he delivers Second Sister, an up-to-the-minute tale of a Darwinian digital city where everyone from tech entrepreneurs to teenagers is struggling for the top.

A schoolgirlSiu-Manhas committed suicide, leaping from her twentysecond floor window to the pavement below. Siu-Man is an orphan and the librarian older sister who's been raising her refuses to believe there was no foul playnothing seemed amiss. She contacts a man known only as N.a hacker, and an expert in cybersecurity and manipulating human behavior. But can Nga-Yee interest him sufficiently to take her case, and can she afford it if he says yes?

What follows is a cat and mouse game through the city of Hong Kong and its digital underground, especially an online gossip platform where someone has been slandering Siu-Man. The novel is also populated by a man harassing girls on mass transit; high school kids, with their competing agendas and social dramas; a Hong Kong digital company courting an American venture capitalist; and the Triads, market women, and noodle shop proprietors who frequent N.'s neighborhood of Sai Wan. In the end it all comes together to tell us who caused Siu-Man's death and why, and to ask, in a world where online and offline dialogue has increasingly forgotten about the real people on the other end, what the proper punishment is.

Part detective novel, part revenge thriller, Second Sister explores themes of sexual harassment, internet bullying and teenage suicide and vividly captures the zeitgeist of Hong Kong today.

Chan Ho-kei (b.1975) is born and raised in Hong Kong. He has worked as software engineer, script writer, game designer and editor of comic magazines. His writing career started in 2008 with the short story The Murder Case of Jack and the Beanstalk, which was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award. He won the award the next year with The Locked Room of Bluebeard. In 2011, Chan's first novel, THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD won the Soji Shimada Mystery Award. Rights to his second novel, THE BORROWED, have sold to twelve countries.

Available products
Book Published 2023-05-11 by Crown Taiwan

Comments

"Chan's appealing style will hold readers' interest, especially those who enjoy their suspense set in international locales."

Trini Vergara Ediciones: "This is not just one more thriller. This is a fantastic novel. Chan Ho-Kei fully deserves his number one status as suspense writer in Chinese. He gives the reader not only a fast-paced reading, with the seamless and intelligent twists in the plot until the very last page; he also gives with special interest for the global reader-- a crude and rich vision of the various worlds today's Hong Kong: The working class environments, which may have fairly good incomes, but must live in minimal spaces; teens at school, with their classic patterns of friendships, jealousy, but also bullying and hypocrisy regarding gender issues; the world of high-tech internet companies, in which hackers and millionaires in the software industry may lead double life games; the most luxurious night spots in the world, and the best food stalls in the slums. Impossible to leave until the last page, impossible to forget until the author's next book!

"Yes, it's almost two inches thick and more than 500 pages, but that shouldn't deter readers from procuring this book promptly. Chan Ho-Kei's second thriller available in the U.S., Second Sister, is virtually irresistible, with twisty-turny, didn't-see-that-coming manipulations guaranteed to keep readers wide awake into the wee hours. As with The Borrowed, Chan's award-winning 2017 English-language debut, Second Sister is translated by Singaporean novelist and playwright Jeremy Tiang, who dexterously conveys Chan's amalgamation of prose, text streams, e-mails and blog posts complete with belligerent comments."

PW calls it "clever" and "twisty" and concludes that "the reveals are both logical and surprising, and Chan populates the plot with realistic characterizations. Fans of hacker thrillers such as Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander books will be amply rewarded." Read more...

"somber tale of investigation and discovery."

big film deal with Linmon Pictures in China

"Sharp-witted intense unveils a dangerous swirl of petty feuds, cybertheft, and the existence of a predator stalking Hong Kong." "After seeing her 15-year-old sister's broken body on the Hong Kong sidewalk below their apartment, Nga-Yee vows to deliver justice to the cyberbully she blames for Siu-Man's suicide. Siu-Man's torment began several months ago when she was groped on a crowded subway train, and a witness identified Shiu Tak-Ping as the perpetrator. After Shiu's incarceration, a social-media rant appeared, stoking sympathy for Shiu, accusing Siu-Man of lying about the attack, and igniting vicious cyberattacks toward Siu-Man. Undeterred by the anonymous poster's attempts to cover his tracks, Nga-Yee's quest for justice takes a turn toward revenge after she convinces Hong Kong's most adept hacker, N., to take her case. Their search, punctuated by hacking details and sharp-witted verbal sparring, unveils a dangerous swirl of petty feuds, cybertheft, and the existence of a predator stalking Hong Kong's vulnerable teens. An intense but rewarding blend of technology, deduction, and flawed relationships; fans of Chan's well-written Englishlanguage debut, The Borrowed (2016), will find even more to like here."