This story takes you to Chinatown to experience the Chinese culture in a fun new mysterious way.

While visiting a television set in Chinatown with her Aunt, Lily witnesses a gang member/actor almost shoot an actor named Tom with a gun that should have contained blanks. Fearing that Lily’s brother, Chris, may become a suspect for having been jealous of Tom’s affection towards Chris’s girlfriend, Auntie Tiger Lil and Lily conduct interviews and solve the case.

This fast paced detective story by Lawrence Yep and published by HarperCollins features the culture of San Francisco’s Chinatown, exploring all types of subjects from the architecture and language, down to the game mah-jong. A major flaw with this story is the fact that the young narrator, Lily, acts only as an assistant to her aunt. For example, when several of the characters are locked in a restaurant’s storage room in the fifteenth chapter, the plan of escape is not suggested by Lily, but rather by her aunt. This tendency damages Lily’s ability to grow as a character. Another flaw occurs during the climax of the story. The action sequence is interrupted by an explanation of how the villain succeeded to that point. Rich with cultural details, this mystery is enjoyable, but does contain some flaws.

When a prop gun used during the making of a television show turns out to have real bullets, twelve-year-old Lily Lew and Auntie, her movie actress great-aunt, comb San Francisco's Chinatown in search of the culprit responsible for loading the gun.