I wanted a little escapist reading, some Ken Follett spy novel, or a Clancy Jack Ryan story.
I was quite disappointed in "What Doesn't Kill You" by Iris Johansen. I don't like stories that have a "magic man" who has mysterious powers that just seem to be exactly appropriate to the situation at hand. The Hu Chang character was just such a magic man - he seemed to be able to whip up any concoction with is magic herbs to fix any calamity. Need to find out info - no problem, here's a truth serum - shot? - just take this. Oh, for some reason we don't know how to follow you without a bugging device (even though we have drones), here's some magic fingernail polish that can be tracked with heat sensors.
The story of a girl growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Hong Kong and meeting up with a pharmacist has some potential, as does the story that many years later her son is kidnapped for an extended period of time, and that she becomes an informant and later an agent for intelligence service(s). I like all of that, but might have like the story better if it relied more on her skills, learned from living in the streets, and training with the CIA than being reliant on the "magic man".
Wouldn't recommend this book.
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