First Sentence: Detective Yu Guangming of the Shanghai Police Bureau stood alone, still reeling of the blow.Inspector Chen Cao is taking time off from his role with the police. He has been asked to translate a business proposal for a triad-related businessman. The proposal is for the construct...
Crime novels are as good as their Detectives. We delight in the Detectives’ failings which serve, not to hide, but to shine light on the brilliance of their often idiosyncratic investigations. We admire their often solitary social existence, as they work under-appreciated and most often, against...
If you want to read a novel written originally in English about China and Chinese culture, you can't do better than start with this book. Qiu Xiaolong (in Chinese, the family name comes at the beginning) is not only China born and bred but, as a poet and translator of ancient Chinese Tang poetry ...
A Case of Two Cities has all the steamy stuff of a thriller: a tip-off about a scandal in the back rooms of a karaoke centre, a dead high-level detective in a compromising situation, and a strange cover-up coming from top-level Internal Security. Throw in the fact that this is 1990s China, and yo...
Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is often put in charge of politically sensitive cases. Having recently ruffled more than a few official feathers, when he is asked to look into a sensitive corruption case he takes immediate action—he goes on leave from work. But while o...
Their visit to the club was prompted by a phone conversation with Mr. Ma, the old herbal doctor.. Ma had given him additional background information about Gu. Gu had been born into a middle-ranking Party member’s family. His father had served as a manager of a large...
![A Loyal Character Dancer - [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 02] by Qiu Xiaolong](/i/cover.jpg)
He wanted to do some reading, even after Peiqin had told him the story of Yin’s novel. Peiqin had also underlined some parts for him to study more closely. The first few pages he turned to described Yang reading to Yin at night behind the pigsty, with piglets grunting off and on as a chorus. &nbs...
In January, China established diplomatic relations with the United States. Comrade Deng Xiaoping visited the United States and held talks with President Carter. In February, Chinese frontier troops launched a counterattack against Vietnamese aggressors in the Guangxi and Yunnan frontier zones and...
The magazine was housed in a Victorian building at the intersection between Wulumuqi and Huaihai Roads, one of the best locations in Shanghai. No wonder, Yu thought, considering its political influence. Red Star was the voice of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Every staff me...
It was an area he was relatively familiar with because of a publishing house located nearby. Still, behind the high walls, behind the shuttered windows, the houses seemed to be hinting at mysterious, inexplicable stories within. Instead of heading directly to Xie Mansion, he went across the stree...
In the early sixties, a number of “worker apartments” were built there, which were undoubtedly an improvement over the pre-1949 slums, but each apartment unit had then been partitioned and partitioned again, resulting in an entire family inhabiting one room of the original three-bedroom design, a...
“Go ahead and go to bed, Yu,” Peiqin said. “I’ll join you as soon as I’ve finished cleaning up.” Yu lay on their bed, smoking, thinking, and listening to her footsteps in the kitchen. It would take her a while to clean up, he supposed. Turning over, he pulled out the cassette player and put in th...