A young “national model worker,” renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.
I really loved this book and couldn't put it down. China and the Chinese people are almost as much characters as the police detectives in the book - Inspector Chen and his assistant, Detective Yu. It is a great mystery but so much more as we are immersed in the culture of 1990s China.
Like his protagonist, Qiu Xiaolong is a is a poet, translator, and academic. He was born in Shanghai and came to the US in 1988 to write a book about T. S. Eliot. After the 1989 protests and massacre in Tiananmen Square, Qiu stayed in the U.S. Ten years later he wrote this book, set around the time of the Tiananmen massacre, which looks at the changing political culture as experienced by Inspector Chen in his investigation.
The mystery was good, as I mentioned, but I also loved the way the tension was ratcheted up partway through when Chen comes under political pressure to save face for the party.
I'm waiting for the second book from the library!
WARNING NOTE: There are some descriptions of sex and of photos thereof. It is easy to skip, which I did, but I wanted to mention it.
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