San Francisco is at once a city of beauty and mystery, of hope and despair. It defies a consistent definition, being more a collection of neighborhoods in occasional uneasy proximity of each other than a cohesive unit. STEALING THE DRAGON, Tim Maleeny's debut novel, successfully captures not only the bright atmosphere of San Francisco but also the darker aspects of its soul, in a manner perhaps previously matched only by Dashiell Hammett.

STEALING THE DRAGON is a crime noir tour of San Francisco's Chinatown, conducted by an occasionally abrasive but nonetheless likable detective and an unforgettable assassin who lead the reader down alleys that are worlds away from the usual tourist haunts. The detective in question is Cape Weathers, an ex-cop who you wouldn't necessarily want to pal around with but who nonetheless would be on the short list of people you could trust to watch your back. Weathers is reluctantly drawn into a homicide investigation when a container ship runs aground on Alcatraz Island. A group of Chinese refugees are on board, along with a brutally murdered crew.

The incident occurs almost simultaneously with the smuggling of a highly valued talisman out of China and the disappearance of Sally, an enigmatic and dangerous associate of Weathers. The Triads, an ancient and powerful alliance of crime entities, want that talisman, and the dots have been connected to Sally and Weathers. Bodies begin piling up, and soon the police --- at least some of them --- are after Weathers as well. In the best tradition of noir private eyes, Maleeny has assembled an intriguing cast of secondary characters to help Weathers navigate his way through a dark and deadly maze where few can be trusted and no one is safe.

While Maleeny skillfully leads his reader through a complex plot, the real star of STEALING THE DRAGON is Chinatown itself. He takes his characters far off the well-treaded paths of the visitor tours and wanders down the alleys that are usually seen only momentarily, if at all, as the buses speed by. Maleeny's compelling descriptions match his plot points for intrigue, resulting in a work that is part noir thriller and part exotic travelogue, and that reads like a collaboration between the aforementioned Hammett and Sax Rohmer.