First 75% was fine. I enjoyed the research he had obviously done into China and its recent history. I also liked how he used that as a backdrop to the story.

As a thriller writer, May does a good job, but when he tries his hand at writing romance, he just seems to copy and paste from Mills & Boon. "Salty tears" and "Hot passionate kisses" are just a lazy way of filling the pages. I'm sure he also tried "Hot, salty tears" at one point, but I was skimming by that point to get the book finished.

He kills off characters with amazing regularity with only a few "Hot, salty tears" to mourn their passing. Then they are forgotten.

Like so many reviewers I've read, I really enjoyed the Lewis trilogy, but this is nowhere near as interesting as them. The Firemaker didn't entice me to go on any further with his China series.