The Dead Can't Make a Living
“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, Jing-nan’s gangster uncle, Big Eye, has his own mysterious, probably illegal, reasons for being concerned about what’s going on in ZHD. He pressures Jing-nan into a daring and risky mission: going undercover as a migrant laborer to get a job at the food processing plant and reporting back about the conditions inside. Jing-nan hopes to find out the truth for the Ramos family, and to save other immigrant lives—but first he has to survive the spy operation.

A rollicking crime novel and a scorchingly timely examination of our global dependence on undocumented immigrants and inhumane labor conditions.
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The Dead Can't Make a Living
“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, Jing-nan’s gangster uncle, Big Eye, has his own mysterious, probably illegal, reasons for being concerned about what’s going on in ZHD. He pressures Jing-nan into a daring and risky mission: going undercover as a migrant laborer to get a job at the food processing plant and reporting back about the conditions inside. Jing-nan hopes to find out the truth for the Ramos family, and to save other immigrant lives—but first he has to survive the spy operation.

A rollicking crime novel and a scorchingly timely examination of our global dependence on undocumented immigrants and inhumane labor conditions.
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The Dead Can't Make a Living

The Dead Can't Make a Living

by Ed Lin
The Dead Can't Make a Living

The Dead Can't Make a Living

by Ed Lin

Hardcover

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Overview

“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, Jing-nan’s gangster uncle, Big Eye, has his own mysterious, probably illegal, reasons for being concerned about what’s going on in ZHD. He pressures Jing-nan into a daring and risky mission: going undercover as a migrant laborer to get a job at the food processing plant and reporting back about the conditions inside. Jing-nan hopes to find out the truth for the Ramos family, and to save other immigrant lives—but first he has to survive the spy operation.

A rollicking crime novel and a scorchingly timely examination of our global dependence on undocumented immigrants and inhumane labor conditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781641297240
Publisher: Soho Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 04/07/2026
Series: A Taipei Night Market Novel , #5
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

About The Author
Ed Lin is a journalist by training and an all-around stand-up kinda guy. He’s the author of four other novels in the Taipei Night Market series: Ghost Month, Incensed, 99 Ways to Die, and Death Doesn’t Forget, as well as five other novels. Lin, who is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. He lives in New York with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.
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