The Chinese chop

1949 mystery set in New York City. From the book - City housing shortage, puts the lie to the common misconception that strong, self-reliant, non-spinster-or-comic female sleuths didn’t appear on the scene until the 1970s. Chinese-American Lily Wu and her novelist Watson, Janice Cameron, are young and feminine but not dependent on men, and it’s hard to imagine how even Asian-American readers could object to the admirable Ily, some now-politically-incorrect terminolgy apart.