The Dead Can't Make a Living (2026)

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“A unique blend of tension, charm, tragedy, and optimism, with characters you’ll love and a setting so real you’ll think you’ve been there. Highly recommended.”—Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series Ed Lin's big-hearted, eye-opening fifth installment in the fan-favorite Taipei Night Market series Jing-nan, the owner of the most popular food stand in Taipei’s world-famous Shilin night market, is hauling trash after a successful evening of hawking Taiwanese delicacies to tourists when he finds a corpse propped up against the dumpsters. The dead man turns out to be Juan Ramos, a Philippine national who came to Taiwan for a job at a massive ZHD food processing plant. Jing-nan is haunted by Ramos’s story, and by the heartbreak of his family, who arrive in Taipei looking for answers. ZHD has a history of safety violations, and activists have a hunch Ramos’s death might be part of a cover-up. Meanwhile