Soho
Published April 7, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Jing-nan owns a popular stall at the Shilin Night Market, a vast food court in Taipei, Taiwan, where he and his small staff serve popular skewer sticks and other delicacies. He’s an energetic salesman, posting regularly to social media and enticing tourists to try his wares. He’s also (by the fifth volume in this series) notorious for getting involved in crimes that land him in the news. This time, he stumbles across a dead body as he takes out the trash. The victim is a Filipino migrant who works at a local food factory staffed largely by foreign workers brought to Taiwan to fill gaps in the labor market. When the man’s grieving family stops by, wanting his death investigated, Jing-nan feels for them, and his uncle Big Eye, a local gangster, encourages him to go undercover at the factory to discover what is going on there that might have led to the man’s death.
Posing as a Filipino, and with his head newly-shaved to avoid recognition, he goes to work at a factory that makes food that has no resemblance to his cuisine. The workers mix together chemicals in vast vats to be turned into candy and other junk food. He’s fortunate to room with just one other worker (most of the contract workers are crowded together in small rooms) who, he quickly learns, is shunned as a troublemaker. Benny is getting on in years, a former history teacher who was blacklisted by his government and now has to work abroad at taxing factory jobs. Though he’s pleasant company, patiently teaching Jing-nan about the system he’s infiltrating and discussing books with him, he is a Communist who tried to organize the workers, which leads the management to demand that Jing-nan spy on him. All Jing-nan wants to do is find out whether something going on at the factory led to a man’s death — and get out before he’s recognized as an infiltrator.
This series is lots of fun, with an ebullient protagonist and a cast of entertaining recurring characters. The night market is a fascinating setting, and the descriptions of food are guaranteed to make readers hungry. Though the series is quite cozy, Ed Lin addresses serious topics with a light touch. Like many societies, Taiwan relies on cheap foreign labor yet looks down on those who fill those jobs. American readers are likely to see parallels with our own country, though the author doesn’t hammer home a message. While the mystery is informative and thought-provoking, Jing-nan’s adventures while working among immigrants are far from expose-style of The Jungle and verge at times on farce. Yet there is respect, there, for the serious topic and its moral implications.
There’s also a less serious theme contrasting the food produced at the factory and the tasty, creative cuisine available at the night market which makes for another message, delivered with zest.