Series ✦ Penny’s Take
Flower Net
Lisa See · 1997
78/100
👍 Worth It
Lisa See's debut delivers a genuinely original procedural — pairing a Chinese MPS investigator and a U.S. attorney across a geopolitical crime web that feels both culturally substantive and propulsively plotted. Some wooden dialogue and a tendency to tell rather than show keep it from the top tier, but the Beijing setting and cultural layering are unusually rich for the genre. Adult readers who want international crime fiction with real heft will find it rewarding.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety60
substance80
craft72
originality82
accuracy80
hype78
age-fit70
human-eye76
Penny’s verdict78
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