thedailychannel.com — recommended books

Death of a Red Heroine
by Qiu Xiaolong

Chief Inspector Chen encounters many challenges in this 1990 murder mystery, which is set in Shanghai. This book is well worth reading, both for its perspective on daily life in modern China, and for the suspenseful story it tells.

The murder victim was a 'model worker' in the Peoples Republic. But her character as an individual also emerges over the course of the lengthy investigation.

A detective novel is a great way to depict life in any society, because the investigation touches on the lives of all involved, in this case to the best of Chief Inspector Chen's ability to find and interview them.

The pace of the novel is slow, and so is the pace of daily life at the time the novel is set.

Inspector Chen is an up-and-coming policeman. He is also interested in classical poetry, and is a poet himself. His knowledge and artistry help him to communicate with his co-workers and the many people he encounters, but usually they don't fully understand his abiding interest in poetry, which to a western reader is quite easily accepted. After all, why would a policeman in Shanghai not be a poet?

A thread of political intrigue runs thoughout the novel. It illuminates how an unregulated political system can intertwine with and influence daily life pervasively. I would like very much to know if the situation depicted here is true-to-life, but perhaps I would not want to discover it at first hand.

It was interesting to read "Death of a Red Heroine" at the same time as Robert Parker's "Gunman's Rhapsody", a short history of the family life of Wyatt Earp. Both novels are novels of lawmen living in the context of an extended family, during a time of rapid historical change in their respective countries.

If you're interested in China, you probably should not pass this one up. Travel over to amazon.com and investigate Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

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