While research on cross-border crime and legal co-operation in the Greater China region abounds, literature in the English language on this subject is rare. Sonny Lo's book fills the gap. This book is a pioneering work which provides a comprehensive survey of cross-border crime and, to a lesser degree, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters in this region.

To research cross-border crime and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters is difficult. Information relating to crime is a sensitive issue anywhere; there is also the language barrier – the Greater China region has three official languages: Chinese, English and Portuguese. On top of these, the largest partner in this relation, the mainland, is far less open than the other parties. Access to information about criminal matters in the mainland remains highly restrictive. Because of the mainland's sensitivity, many of the relevant policy documents, details of administrative arrangements, and even formal agreements are not available in the public domain. Researchers, including the author of this book, are forced to rely on newspaper reports, mainly from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as their major source of information.

The book, relying largely on news reports, provides a detailed and vivid account of the emergence of cross-border crime in the Greater China region. This publication tells a story of not only cross-border crimes that have increased in number and sophistication, but also of the growth in cross-border co-operation between the four different jurisdictions (namely, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). The book covers cross-border offences that range from the common and routine (prostitution, smuggling, corruption, money laundering, immigration offences and art crimes) to the less common and rarely encountered (espionage and terrorism). This book also reports on the endeavours of each government in tackling these crimes through co-operation.

The book is successful in mapping cross-border crime in the region. Interestingly, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan have been traditionally on the supply side in the increasing cross-border crime. Smuggling from Hong Kong to the mainland market used to be the main cross-border crime in the region; and triad societies from Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan are surprisingly active, posing serious danger to law and order in Southern China. Seemingly, the PRC borders, which restrict movement of people from the mainland to the other three places while allowing relative freedom of movement in the other direction, explain this pattern in spite of the author's reluctance to acknowledge this prohibitive function. Geographic proximity, social networking, and lack of effective co-operation in combating cross-border crime on the mainland make the southern part of the mainland in particular a haven of organized crime.

Contributions from the mainland to crime in the other three regions, on the contrary, are less significant, again, due to the existence of the borders which restrict effectively the movement of people from the mainland to the other three locations. Most of the offences committed by mainlanders are petty and committed by individual visitors who are lured to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for quick profits. These would be mostly prostitutes, illegal workers and pickpockets. But because of the disparity in size between the mainland and the smaller counterparts, the impact of those petty offences on the criminal justice establishment could be overwhelming. For example, a quarter of the inmates in Hong Kong's correction institutions are now mainland visitors and the number may rise quickly with the further opening of the border.

The book is less successful when it comes to examining mutual legal assistance. There is less reporting in the news on that front and cross-border co-operation in criminal matters is a more complicated and politically sensitive topic. The book focuses on co-operation at a more technical level among frontline organizations such as the police, immigration and customs. Those organizations work well with each other in combating cross-border crime, often under the co-ordination of mainland authorities. Police officers from these different jurisdictions, often on a first-name basis, work closely with each other with a high degree of trust, and their co-operative actions, as the author mentioned, are effective and often achieve short-term results. But at a deeper, structural level, there is more resistance and even hostility among the three smaller systems which are trying, in their own unique ways, to keep the mainland criminal justice system at a distance, with the judiciary being most hostile toward legal co-operation without sound legal footing. That explains, in part, why existing co-operation is largely administrative. The political dimension – how the authoritarian rule in the mainland, the emerging democracy in Taiwan, the rule of law regime in Hong Kong and the casino-capitalism in Macau have shaped crime and the criminal justice system in the different places – has unfortunately received less attention in the book. The author is thorough, with good attention to detail. He is also successful in organizing the otherwise messy facts into a coherent and clear presentation. He is less successful in providing an overall conceptual framework that could help readers understand the politics of cross-border crime and cross-border (non-)co-operation in this region.

Notwithstanding these concerns, this work is a good sourcebook for studying cross-border crime and legal co-operation in the Greater China region. Cross-border crime is bound to increase given the increase in economic transactions and social integration in this region. This book lays a good foundation for further studies in this area.