Chinaman Chance

By Ross Thomas

Book Overview

""It was while jogging along the beach just east of the Paradise Cove pier that Artie Wu tripped over a dead pelican, fell, and met the man with six greyhounds."""- "from "Chinaman's Chance" Thus begins what may be the most popular of Ross Thomas's unique stories. The combination of Wu, pretender to the Imperial throne of China, and Quincy Durant, who has his own colorful past, makes for a heady experience. After starting with the deceased pelican on a California beach, the plot mixes in the disappearance of a large sum of money that should have been buried in Vietnam, and the search for the missing member of a trio of singing sisters from the Ozarks. Only Thomas could have stirred this concoction with the style, humor, and suspense that captures the reader at the very beginning and doesn't let go until the last word.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0445407255
• ISBN13: 9780445407251
• Release Date: July 1988
• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

The Best Of "Wu & Durant"....

Of the Ross Thomas books containing the Wu & Durant characters, this one is arguably the best. A great story with twists and turns that keep the pages turning with very little effort.The characters are so well developed only a photograph would offer any more insight. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Thomas has the ability to modify that statement to paint a picture using very little wordage. If your a Thomas fan this book shoud definitley be high on your list of "next" reads.

Great story, great characters, great book!

Lifelong pals since they hooked up in a San Francisco orphanage, Artie Woo and Quincy Durant are two of the best characters you'll come across in any thriller. Nobody plumbs the depths of corruption and works a great con like this dynamic duo of the Pacific Rim. Throw in the likes of grifter Otherguy Overby, CIA master Whittaker Lowell James, and a former folk trio named Ivory, Lace, and Silk, and you've got the makings for one helluva adventure."Chinaman's Chance" is a delight to read. The juicy, twisted tale of opportunists on the make was tailor-made for Ross Thomas' fast-paced, witty style. He had a remarkable ability of making cynical characters likable and complex plots believable. His novels are "page-turners," but they're also insightful and poignant sketches of the human condition. He was truly an uncommon talent.

Bring These Books Back

The best book by the best mystery author. How can these be out of print when so much is in print and unreadable

As good as Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald

If you like the combination of humor and action in the tradition of Leslie Charteris, Raymond Chandler, Robert B Parker, and John D. MacDonald, you will like Ross Thomas. Great character development. Good plot. Lots of great dialog.GET THESE BOOKS BACK IN PRINT!

One of Thomas' jewels; if not his best book

The wily Artie Wu and the often explosive Quincy Durant appear for the first time in this novel.Throw in a missing actress, a luckless vietnam vet, a fixer connected into the highest circles in Washington, a couple of very bad guys and a fat, Tab-drinking italian killer with his two hoodlums.Mix it with a couple million bucks under the ground in the ex American embassy in Saigon and a seedy place in Southern California that is so ripe that it has to be perceived as outright rotten.Then let the master of the double and triple cross weave a plot that's thrilling, entertaining, unpredictable and sometimes outright shocking up to the very end.Spice it up with some dialogues that are so dry that they can't be outmatched by a swig of Gin, straight from the bottle.All those components make up one of Thomas' best reads ever.I consider it to be a shame that so many of his books went out of print.