The Expat

A Novel

By: Hansen Shi

Narrated by: David Lee Huynh

At twenty-six, Princeton grad Michael Wang is trapped. Stifled under the bamboo ceiling at General Motors, he's working quietly on a breakthrough in self-driving car technology that he hopes will catapult him out of obscurity. Disaffected and largely friendless in San Francisco, he's dogged by resentment towards the Ivy Leaguers who never accepted him and his colleagues who see him as passive and faceless.

But all that changes when one night, on a freelance coding platform, he meets the beautiful and enigmatic Vivian. She's been admiring Michael's work from afar and represents a rival Beijing tech company that's eager to poach him, liberate his ideas from the stagnant confines of GM, and help him find success. For Michael, it's no choice at all. But as soon as Michael arrives in Beijing, Vivian vanishes. When the true nature of his new position is made clear, Michael finds himself enmeshed in a dangerous web of industrial espionage and counterintelligence. Caught between two countries that view him as a pawn, where do his loyalties lie?

Piercingly intelligent and ruthlessly contemporary, The Expat is a spy novel and a thrilling exploration of the myth of meritocracy, high-tech immigration, U.S.-China conflicts, identity, and disaffection that asks: in the pursuit of self-actualization, who will we betray and how far will we go?

©2024 Hansen Shi (P)2024 Tantor Media

A gripping modern thriller

A gripping spy thriller for the modern technology age. Really enjoyed how the author explored the layers of complexity around being an immigrant family in a foreign country, and trying to find your place in a world you don’t quite belong. It feels very relevant to consider how loyalties and friendships can reflect our upbringing and political and cultural beliefs, often shifting through different stages of life. A fascinating slow burn of a novel that takes you into Michael’s world and his inner thoughts, as he experiences betrayal and loss.

great book

i hope this author writes sequels at some point. great story and narrator is excellent.