The Dead Can't Make a Living
A Taipei Night Market Novel
An entrepreneur navigates Taiwan’s government, gangs, and corporate culture in Ed Lin’s mystery novel The Dead Can’t Make a Living.
Entrepreneurial, sarcastic, and unlucky Jing-nan runs his late parents’ food stall in Taipei’s famous Shilin Night Market. He also witnesses—and becomes involved in—a handful of criminal investigations. Now, he is enrolled in a college-level business class, hoping to improve operations and take some of the burden off of his girlfriend, Nancy. But when Jing-nan finds the body of a Filipino migrant worker at the night market, he is once again embroiled in a scandal that threatens his livelihood and life.
The Shilin Night Market is a dynamic, exciting setting that Jing-nan fleshes out in great detail. Other food vendors offer both camaraderie and competition, and Mosh, his employee, makes sausages-within-sausages that he both envies and mocks. The varied cast also includes Jing-nan, shady teacher Mr. Chiang, and his gangster uncle, Big Eye, whose powerful underworld friends take an immediate interest in the murder. Each person Jing-nan encounters is memorable, providing both comic relief and a strong backbone of community among the darker themes surrounding the murder.
The mystery is suspenseful and slow, treated at a luxurious pace alongside daily insights into Jing-nan’s life. Indeed, the book trades between the investigation and scenes set in Jing-nan’s business class, as well as those covering the continual difficulties of owning a small business. Then, Taipei’s powerful players escalate the stakes beyond the murder, and Jing-nan is embroiled in a mystery involving Taipei’s government, from which the city’s many gangs are inextricable. Themes related to the inhumane treatment of migrant workers also play in.
In the immersive mystery novel The Dead Can’t Make a Living, an ordinary man navigates Taiwanese industry and the criminal underworld.
Reviewed by
Leah Block
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