Fonda Lee’s Jade City is exactly the sort of thing I’d normally hate. It’s set on the fictional island of Kekon, a couple of generations after it’s won its independence from a colonizing nation. The guerrilla fighters who won that war went on to become basically ganglords, and now we’re watching their grandchildren—who are modern, educated, cosmopolitan people—trying to meld their modern attitudes with the macho bullshit needed to be successful ganglords. If this sounds a lot like The Godfather to you, you’re not wrong.
So yeah, it’s about criminals doing murders and being lightly angsty about it, and it’s about gang wars and street violence and loyalty and intimidation and all that jazz. Not really things that are in my wheelhouse at all. But for whatever reason, it really worked for me. Maybe partly because of the interesting setting, with magical jade that only specially-trained people (who get pulled into high positions in the warring clans) can safely use; just the presence of magic and calling the gangs “clans” kinda makes it feel more like a fantasy novel more than a straight-up street crime thing (even though it’s clearly set in modern-esque times—roughly the ‘80s, I’d guess?).
But also it works because of the characters, who are unexpectedly interesting—even the ones who seem blandly obnoxious have more depth to them than you’d expect. And a few of the prominent characters in the book are women, which seems atypical for the testosterone-drenched street crime genre.
Recommended to anyone who likes gangster stuff, but also to people who (like me) don’t. (This is the first book of what’s apparently going to be a series, but it stands alone well, even as the sequel hooks are obvious.)
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