Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen (William Morrow)

It’s easy to mistake Kirstin Chen’s Counterfeit as a bit of summer fluff, but this Singaporean American writer has other plans--and they are devious. What begins as a strange reunion between two women who were college roommates at Stanford turns into a unique partnership with a criminal bent. Winnie is a Mainland Chinese glamour girl with a brain who has caught the eye of a Guangzhou business magnate. Ava is a Chinese American prodigy who recently gave up a prestigious position in a law firm to raise her difficult child. She’s bored out of her skull so when Winnie offers her a new and somewhat dodgy occupation, eventually she accepts the job.

Suddenly Ava is immersed in the world of counterfeit handbags, buying the real thing at upscale stores and then making a return at the same place with a gorgeous forgery. She and Winnie split the refund and sell the purloined designer bags on Ebay at prices far below retail. 

When Ava has qualms of revulsion about this scheme, Winnie asks “What makes a fake bag fake if it’s indistinguishable from the real thing? What gives the real bag its inherent value?” Ava has no answer; the bags they use to defraud are not the “copy bags” hawked on the streets of Hong Kong or piled in the windows of dingy little shops. These are the “creme de la creme” of replicas, far above the “super A” and the mere “A” copies. The bags Winnie receives from China have been made with the same care and luxurious materials as their genuine counterparts. These are the replicas known as “one-to-one.” But while the genuine bag sells for five-figure prices, the gorgeous and identical copies go for a fraction of that. 

This is where Counterfeit becomes something more than the story of a bored housewife. The details of the replica trade are riveting and almost take over the entire novel. The makers of the world’s most coveted status symbols have contracts with manufacturing plants in China where labor is cheap, workers are skilled, and factories are state-of-the-art. When Ava goes to Shenzhen on a quality-control mission, she’s taken to the Baiyun Leather World Trade Center, “the world’s largest retailer of replica designer leather goods.” There she finds gorgeous boutiques, one selling Fendi bags, another focusing on Birkin and Kelly. All of the world’s most exclusive brands are there, in luscious colors and displayed like jewels at Tiffany’s. However when Ava meets the contact who will show her the merchandise that she’s come to inspect, he takes her to a shabby building where she’s ushered into a room filled with black garbage bags. Her guide locks the door and opens the bag of fifty Chanel Gabrielle Hoboes which Ava examines carefully and then purchases. When she leaves Shenzhen, she carries a Kelly bag in amethyst leather, exactly like the real thing, for which she’s paid less than 900 dollars.

Later she visits a manufacturing plant where the genuine bags are made under heavy security to prevent replication. Within the compound is another factory, under the same ownership as the business that has contracted to make the real thing. Plans, materials, and labels all migrate from one plant to another and then return, while never going beyond the heavily guarded gates of the complex. 

Just when Counterfeit threatens to become the story of a fascinating trade, Chen switches gears. Her plot twists take over the narrative once again and few readers will be able to figure out where this novel is taking them. But one thing is certain. Kirstin Chen has concocted a fiendishly clever story--and anyone who reads it will probably find themselves yearning for a one-to-one replica bag, scruples be damned.~Janet Brown