The Butcher's Granddaughter

"Readers who like gritty, hard-boiled yarns will welcome Michael Lion's THE BUTCHER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. The fast action and twisting plot features 'Bird,' and information-broker drawn into a Chinese puzzle of Asian gangs, human greed, and casual death. It's a fine debut for Lion and for his protagonist who is in love with 'the smog and the garbage and the poverty and the traffic and the noise' of the underside of Los Angeles. L.A noir hasn't been done any better." --Rex Burns, Egar Award-winning author of THE LEANING LAND

They call him Bird. He makes his living by understanding how Los Angeles operates after the sun goes down. When a French-Vietnamese transplant named Li Nguyen approaches Bird and asks him to protect her sister Song from a jealous boyfriend, Bird reluctantly agrees. But it doesn’t take long for Bird to realize that Song’s troubles go much deeper than a relationship gone bad. As the bodies start to pile up, Bird finds himself trapped in a labyrinth of familial rivalries and resentments. From the mean streets of Los Angeles to the slums of Honolulu, it will take all of Bird’s cunning to avoid his own bloody fate.