Death of a Red Heroine: Inspector Chen 1 (As heard on Radio 4) Paperback – 13 Jul 2006

Warning:contain spoilers

As a crime novel, the mood that it conveys is rather unusual. It is not a thriller that gives you a fright. There is not much action that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Nor is there much violence to make you squirm. It has sex, sexually suggestive scenes, and obscenity (relating to the crime and evidence under concern, therefore unsuitable for kids). The mood for this crime novel is surprisingly - calm! It does not take you on a roller coaster at all. The novel is narrated in a strangely subdued kind of way.

I suppose the main protagonist - Chief Inspector Chen - is a rather unusual character. He is a poet and sees everything in the taint through his poetic perception. Solving crimes is like the sideline rather than the main theme. His mind is full of poems. This makes him a rather unusual inspector, quite unlike the kind we are used to. Therefore whether he makes a convincing inspector is subject to individual opinion. One could however argue that the mismatch reflects something of the Chinese society - more often than not, people are not assigned to posts that suit them. It is people's life to try their best to make themselves fit into the mismatched situations.

The success of the book is not in the crime solving (one could say this is its downfall as a crime novel?), but in its depiction of the relationship between the people and the state. This aspect of the novel can be an eye-opener to the westerners who have never experienced communism and a one-party rule. It is an irony that communism with the ideological goal of equality and equal opportunity leads to a society equally unequal and perhaps more oppressive than previously. The truth is once you get the power, you want to keep hold of it. It only replaces one privileged class with another. Family background is more important, not less, under the communist rule, albeit with a different set of assessment rules, which keeps changing according to the political tide. I think the book is successful in throwing up a lot of the contradictions and ironies in the system and the society, The Chinese people portrayed are stoical to the point of being poignant. Even when Inspector Chen was "in trouble", there was no anger, irritation or frustration; there were only worries. Before Chen was "in trouble", there was sarcasm. That was all. I suppose setting in the year after the Tienanmen Massacre, there couldn't be a critical spirit in one's thought. I don't know if this is the intention of the author.

The book portrays convincingly how extensively the state and politics are in shaping daily decisions of the people. That the Big Brother is watching is very real. The pressure is such that people lead a double life and almost all have some sort of secrets to hide. This is clearly manifested in the murder victim and the murderer and most of the witnesses thereafter. The scariest reality is that you could be the model, up and coming, star in the hierarchy but overnight, that fate could be turned and you could be condemned. There is no absolute or certainty. It all depends on the whims of some senior officials sitting remotely away, and you can one day be in the right and the next day in the wrong. The age old dilemma that if one higher up would like to take you down, you are guilty before they find a charge, and they will find one. This happens with Inspector Chen - he was a rising star and then he was "in trouble". His friend advised Inspector Chen to quit and lead a life of easy conscience. This can be an attitude - focus on making money which is afforded by the opportunities, and turn away from politics which constantly wrench your conscience. The ending once again is that poignancy about the power of the state. The murderer was sentenced but not for the crime that he had committed. Instead his charge was one that Inspector Chen could also have been accused of if the state knew what he had done. Is this justice done? Does it matter? These are profound questions that are thrown up by the book.

Another characteristics of this book is its numerous references to Chinese classic and poetry. One may say that this is its strength. I think it could be a weakness. Using connotations from Chinese classic and poems which the reader is not familiar with does not enrich the narrative but does the opposite. The author should appreciate that most western readers are not as knowledgeable as he in Chinese classic and poems. Therefore the relationships and the message are lost with the clueless reader, as it is not sufficiently self-explanatory in the text. This greatly reduces the enjoyment of the reader in reading the book, and makes it read rather disjointed. If these references are occasional, it wouldn't have been a problem. But in this book, it is the main style of narrative and prose. I therefore suspect that a lot is lost in the conveyance of the story that the author has in his mind in the first place. This is regrettable.

As a detective story, there are a couple of brilliant places where the team had to communicate in code, and they used the connotations in specific poems. Again, if you do not know these poems and background, it is hard to appreciate to its full. But I grant that the system should work and in a rather stylish way too. The case is a bit underwhelming. I would have thought the murderer with his background and power would have done something more to protect himself and would go all out offensive in order to defend himself. That would have created more action and suspense that propelled the story. But no the criminal didn't counteract. Therefore there is an imbalance in the development of goodies and baddies in the book. The baddie is portrayed rather remotely and second-handedly through what the investigation reveals. There is no new development in the character of the baddie at all.

Towards the end, the force that the goodies are up against was the state, the central party and politics,and not the individuals.

I won't rush out to buy the next one in the series, although it will be interesting to find out how the main characters develop and if the author matures as a writer of detective story or produces one of the same.

This is the first of the Inspector Chen series of novels by the award winning expatriate Chinese author Qiu Xiaolong. However, this is not just a run-of-the-mill detective novel, this is a finely crafted work of exceptional quality with serious literary pretensions. The books are set in 1990s China, this first in Shanghai, and depict a rapidly changing and somewhat bewildering society under the rule of Deng Xiaoping, the great reformer. Thus we have a society in which the old cadres are trying to retain their privileges and power and are being challenged by a new thrusting reformist breed encouraged by their leader. Chen, a cop with integrity, thus has to walk a political tightrope whilst trying to solve a difficult murder case.
The author paints a vivid and accurate picture of the topography of Shanghai (which I have visited), of the living conditions of the different strata of society, of the local food, entertainment and of the quickening pace of change. Chen is depicted as an intellectual poetry-quoting policeman which allows the author to recall lines from Chinese and English poets, a topic in which he was awarded a PhD whilst living in the United States.
The underlying detective story is finely crafted and convincing but this book also presents a painless way of learning a lot about modern China, its life and politics. The book contains no violence and is certainly not ‘embossed-title-airport-lounge’ fair. One of the best written and most engrossing novels I have read in a long time, and unreservedly recommended to those who like their detective novels to contain a strong intellectual element. Difficult to put down.

When inspector Chen is called to investigate the finding of a dead woman in a backwater, he doesn't know that his career can come to an end. The victim is a dead "national moder worker", a person who is displayed by the Communist Party as a role model. Then all is routine investigation: interviewing people, adding two and two... What Chen doesn't expect is that the Communist Party doesn't want any negative propaganda, even in the search of truth and justice.

The best thing in the novel is the depcition of the late communist period, during Deng Xiaoping. The Party still ruled, but had started a "lighter hand" approach and with capitalist reforms. Then you can see how deep the Party control on people was, deciding on their studies, work, partner, way of life, private life. The senior Communist Party members were a caste appart, that didn't mingle withe the lower segments of society, that enjoyed what others couldn't. That is what makes this novel more interesting.

Appart from that, the narrative is peaceful to the point of being slow (perhaps something is lost in traslation), and the criminal investigation is used as a tapestry for social and political criticism.

Nothing extraordinary, but not a bad try for a beginner, either.