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Denise Hamilton has spent most of her adult life reporting important current events in Asia and Eastern Europe for several well-known publications. She has written and published articles about the fall of communism and Japan's youth movements. Now, in her debut novel, the author draws from her ten years of experience working as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times to create her series heroine, L. A. Times reporter Eve Diamond. The Jasmine Trade works as a sociology paper of La.'s differing cultures as well as a mystery novel. Hamilton integrates both of these elements in order to write a thought-provoking drama in a story of shattered illusions and broken dreams. As the novel begins, the reporter is investigating a carjacking that killed a well-to-do Chinese teenager named Marina Lu. She had just picked up the bridesmaid for her upcoming nuptials to an important young businessman, but now she is about to become a statistic. Eve wants to personalize this seventeen-year-old's tragic story and make people think about the crime in the city, but in the course of her research Eve gets more than she bargained for. She will learn about affluent Chinese families who buy houses in California so that their children stay and get an education, while their parents are still in China. It is an unusual version of latchkey children that the author highlights through her novel and explains with greater detail at her web site, www.denisehamilton.com. There is also evidence that Marina's death was not random and it seems that the dead girl had information about indentured Chinese immigrants working in prostitution. Eve will do her best to expose the story and save some people. She will just not like the price she will have to pay for justice. What makes this book appear more real is the amount of research the author must have put through in order to write this novel. She shows us Chinese culture in the other side of the United States by showing how they are living in the West Coast. There are no glaring stereotypes written in the novel or are there any clear-cut answers. The author does a good job in writing an editorial on illegal immigrants and the lack of resources for several law enforcement divisions. Eve Diamond is the protagonist of the story, not the lead. It is possible that she might be further developed in her next novel, The Sugar Skull, but the strength is the story. It is a good novel for anyone interested in reading and discussing current events around the world. There is plenty to talk about in The Jasmine Trade.
Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, January 2003
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