Book cover of The Water Rat of Wanchai

Book description

Meet Ava Lee — the smartest, most stylish heroine in crime fiction since Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salandar — in the first installment of the wildly popular Ava Lee novels. 

Ava Lee is a young Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant, who specializes in recovering massive debts and works for an elderly Hong Kong–based…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Water Rat of Wanchai as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The Water Rat of Wanchai is the first book in the Ava Lee crime thriller series. Tough, fearless Ava is a forensic accountant who travels to exotic locales (all well-known to author Ian Hamilton) chasing bad debts. The settings aren’t Canadian, but Ava is: she immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong as a child, and grew up in Richmond Hill, outside Toronto. Her current home is in Toronto’s trendy Yorkville neighborhood, but she has strong business ties to Asia. In many ways, she’s a typical Canadian—raised and educated in Canada, with ties to another part of the world, and fluent…

From Rosemary's list on The best Canadian mystery novels.

If you love The Water Rat of Wanchai...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Want books like The Water Rat of Wanchai?

Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Water Rat of Wanchai.

Browse books like The Water Rat of Wanchai

Book cover of Still Life
Book cover of The Suicide Murders
Book cover of Going to Beautiful

Share your top 3 reads of 2026!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

164

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like The Water Rat of Wanchai, you might also like...

Book cover of The Tao of Poison

The Tao of Poison by Isham Cook,

A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.

The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…

Book cover of Big Ideas... For Small Businesses: Simple, Practical Tools and Tactics to Help Your Small Business Grow

Big Ideas... For Small Businesses by John Lamerton,

Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…

5 book lists we think you will like!