Chinese Chop

Juanita Sheridan (nee Light), born in Oklahoma in 1906, spent her childhood in boarding schools and traversing the American West unsupervised. By her early 20s, broke and with a baby, she landed in Los Angeles and hustled hard writing (and selling!) screenplays. When little Ross was adopted by his grandmother, Sheridan lit out for Hawai'i to write in earnest. Escaping an unsuccessful marriage, she left Hawai'i in 1941. After stays in New York and California, she eventually remarried and landed in Mexico, working as a translator and knocking back a regular cocktail of booze and pills. In 1974 her son received a postcard informing him of her death. Incurably restless and likely a terrible mother, Juanita Sheridan made a vital contribution to the mystery genre: her protagonist Lily Wu was the first Asian woman to anchor a series. At a time when Asian characters were often clumsy caricatures, Sheridan depicted Lily and her multiethnic supporting players as nuanced, fully realized human beings.

“Lily Wu is a fascinating detective. She does not just solve crimes, but also helps other characters—and readers—discover their own prejudices and assumptions. She feels in many ways familiar yet she broke the mold for the fictional representation of ethnic minorities.” —100 Greatest Literary Detectives