Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beijing Payback | 2019 | Daniel Nieh | Buy |
| 2 | Take No Names | 2022 | Daniel Nieh | Buy |
Daniel Nieh’s novels are thrillers rooted in Chinese-American experience. Beijing Payback (2019) sends its protagonist to Beijing to uncover the truth about his father’s death. Take No Names (2022) pushes the story further into international crime.
Beijing Payback introduces Victor Li, a college basketball player whose father is murdered outside a Beijing restaurant. Victor travels to China to investigate and discovers his father had ties to a smuggling operation. The book moves fast and balances action with sharp observations about the distance between Chinese and Chinese-American identity.
Take No Names picks up with Victor three years later, now working as a fixer in the criminal underworld. Nieh’s writing gained confidence between the two books, and the second novel has a tighter, more controlled pace. Both books are standalone enough to read independently, though reading them in order gives Victor’s story more weight.