"Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim--the Thursday Murder Club--are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper's Chase, their posh retirement village. But they are out of luck. An unexpected visitor--an old pal of Elizabeth's (or perhaps more than just a pal?)--arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men and he's...

"In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, gather to play mah jong, remember the past, and gossip into the night. United in unspeakable loss and new hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. . . . Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, memories that reveal these women's strength, worries, and determination, which their American-born daughters reject as irrelevant. The daughters, in turn, recall pivotal moments...

Annoyed that Sister Bear always beats them at baseball and other "boy" type activities, her brother and the other male cubs try to exclude her from their new club.