The Places You Will Go

Reading Room

This week's Reading Room features books about cops and robbers, vampires and sperm donors. The usual 25% discount at Kinokuniya applies with the coupon (only in StarTwo).

Super Sleuth

My only reservation about the wonderful Nancy Drew is the soft spot she has for Ned Nickerson.

 

Murder in China

I interviewed US-based Chinese author Qiu Xiaolong in April this year and the story was finally published today.

Since then I've also got around to reading the first book in his Chief Inspector Chen series. I really liked it and I want to read the other books.

HERE are their synopses as they appeared in Reads Monthly (StarMag, 27th May 2007) ...

 

Death of a Red Heroine

ONE afternoon, the naked body of a young woman is found wrapped in a black trash bag in an obscure canal in Shanghai. It is the corpse is of Guan Hongying (the name Hongying can be read as "red heroine"), a national model worker, thus bringing the case’s political aspects squarely into place. Chief Inspector Chen Cao and his older subordinate Yu investigate the case, eventually tracing the likely murderer as Wu Xiaoming, the only son of Wu Bai, a high-ranking Party cadre.

 

A Loyal Character Dancer

CHEN and Inspector Catherine Rohn of the US Marshal Service must work together to find a missing woman. She is married to an important witness in a US criminal case who has refused to testify unless his pregnant wife is allowed to join him. The Chinese government has reluctantly agreed to let her go and the Americans have sent a marshal to escort her. Then, inexplicably she vanishes....

 

When Red Is Black

WHEN Yin Lige, the author of a banned book, is found murdered in her Shanghai apartment, Chen and detective Yu Guangming must solve a case that may have far-reaching political and social implications. (The “red” of the title refers to Mao Zedong’s Red Guard, the “black” to the supposed enemies of the working class denounced during the Cultural Revolution.). 

Yu soon uncovers the long-ago romance between the victim and Yang Bing, a college professor.

 

A Case of Two Cities

THE Communist Party leadership appears to be vigorously investigating rampant corruption among the profligate power elite during China’s economic reforms of the recent past. 

After the head of the Fujian special case squad is murdered in sordid circumstances, Chen discovers that the dead man had been probing a wealthy businessman, Xing Xing, who fled to the United States to escape prosecution. 

Chen himself is then given the highest authority to carry on the investigation, which takes him to the United States, but he soon realises he’s not meant to succeed.

 

Source: Wikipedia, Amazon.com, FantasticFiction.co.uk

Not Traditional

First published on the 5th April, 2002 in StarTwo

Aftermath (The Inspector Banks series)
By Peter Robinson
Publisher: Pan, 352 pages
(ISBN: 978-0330489348)

Review by DAPHNE LEE

Bone-chilling Thriller

Originally published on 24th May 2002 in StarTwo.

Review by DAPHNE LEE

CITY OF BONES

By Michael Connelly

Publisher: Orion, 448 pages

(ISBN: 978-0446611619)