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Canadian antiques expert Lara McClintoch is asked by an ill Chinese friend, retired Chinese art historian Dory Matthews, to go to New York and bid on a rare Tang Dynasty silver box for her. Dory wants her desire for the box to be kept a secret because in the rather small Chinese antiques community, where petty emotions can rule, there are a few people around who would be more than happy to outbid for the box just to keep Dory from getting it. The story is that, when Dory was a child, her family had possession of three boxes that nested inside each other, and that the box on auction is the smallest of the three boxes and it has a recipe for the elixir of mortality written on it. Since Dory had lost her father to the Communist leaders in China when her mother ran to the West with her, the box means a lot to Dory and she wants to obtain all three and then donate them to a Chinese museum in memory of her family. In New York, Lara sees a few other people looking at the box too. The group includes Burton Haldimand, the man who took Dory's old job and forced her to retire, a young man wearing knock-off clothing, and a dark stranger. Just as the box is going to be put up for bidding, it's suddenly pulled and is no longer for sale. Lara leaves empty-handed. A few days later Dory dies in her home and Lara thinks that is the end of the business of the box, but Dory's will hands a lot of money to Lara so that she can once again bid on the box for Dory's estate when it is available. To Lara's amazement the box is again put up for auction – but in Beijing! Even though she can't speak Chinese, Dory's husband insists that Lara try to make Dory's last wish come true. With the same people in attendance at the auction in Beijing as there was in New York, the silver box is just about to go up when one of the people looking at it suddenly grabs the box and steals it! Confused as to what to do next Lara thinks she might join forces with Burton Haldimand to get information about the now stolen box. But before long Lara sees that she can't trust Burton, and then the possession of the box becomes even more stressful as people who want it begin to be murdered! Lara is now stuck in China, where she can't speak the language and where the lives of people she knows are put into danger! I thought the full story of the boxes and Dory's family's involvement with them during the recent terrible time in China's history was very interesting. I also thought that writer Lyn Hamilton's telling of the story of the box's origin set in the eighth century alongside the modern day story was nicely done. I found she captured the feel ancient China quite well. My largest criticism is that the end of the book is made up of whole long chapters that have Lara just telling the readers the final true story of Dory's involvement with the boxes and of its connection with the criminal element in modern China. Pages and pages have Laura simply filling us in with rather dry information that wraps the mystery up. I understand it saves time, but because the author decided to just have Lara tell us everything straight out, it also tended to bore me and I found I started to skip over many paragraphs. THE CHINESE ALCHEMIST contains a lovely eighth century story set in that time period alongside an exciting modern story of the way China has problems with criminals and high-level crime in today's world, but the info dumping of the ending took away a lot of the charm of the book.
Reviewed by A. L. Katz, May 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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