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The Jade Butterfly (Dan Sharp Mystery 3)
By Jeffrey Round
Published by Dundurn Press, 2015
Five stars

These are such good books. Round is an excellent writer, and his taught, crisp prose draws you through the twists and turns of the plotline effortlessly.

The story here involves a powerful Chinese diplomat, profoundly closeted out of necessity, who engages Dan to find his long-lost sister—who disappeared on the night of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. This narrative dominates the book, but—as Round always does—there is a secondary story about a runaway teenager, the daughter of a policeman Dan Sharp knows

And, also something expected and anticipated in these books, there is the domestic story—Dan’s fifteen-year-old son Kedrick, Kedrick’s mother Kendra, and Dan’s best friend Donny. Themes of family circle throughout the story; but also something else. For a supposedly hard-bitten private eye, deeply mired in the psychological aftermath of a rough childhood, Dan Sharp is a helpless romantic. He falls in love far too easily, it seems to me.

All of that leads to my final note: these are not romances at all, which of course makes me sad. Round has made Dan such a profoundly good man, and we want him to find happiness. In an odd way, it is the lack of romance that keeps us (or at least me) hooked. Hope springs eternal, and as late as I am to this party, I have all six books on my Kindle.