Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Death of a Red Heroine
    Unavailable
    Death of a Red Heroine
    Unavailable
    Death of a Red Heroine
    Ebook654 pages8 hours

    Death of a Red Heroine

    By Qiu Xiaolong

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    A TIME “100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time”

    Meet Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police in this “refreshingly brave exploration into political China, woven around a tense thriller” (Huffington Post).

    “A matchless pearl.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateJul 1, 2003
    ISBN9781569476963
    Author

    Qiu Xiaolong

    Anthony Award winning author Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai and moved to Washington University in St Louis, US, to complete a PhD degree in comparative literature. After the Tiananmen tragedy in 1989 he stayed on in St Louis where he still lives with his wife. Qiu's sold over two million copies of his Inspector Chen mysteries worldwide and been published in twenty languages. On top of his fiction, he is a prize-winning writer of poetry. All the titles in the Inspector Chen series, including Hold Your Breath, China, have been dramatized in BBC Radio 4 productions. www.qiuxiaolong.com

    Read more from Qiu Xiaolong

    Related to Death of a Red Heroine

    Related ebooks

    Crime Thriller For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Ancient Poetry Shines

      Jun 25, 2020

      A 7-year-old girl recites Welcome Rain on a Spring Night, a poem from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), in front of a thatched cottage in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in southwest China. “The good rain knows its season, when spring arrives. It brings life… Da

      5 min read

    • Article

      On Travel Writing

      May 26, 2020

      On Travel Writing
      7 min read

    • Article

      When the Whales Leave

      Sep 3, 2020

      YURI RYTKHEU Milkweed Editions, 2020. $14, 136 pages. A YOUNG WOMAN named Nau lives alone on the edge of an Arctic sea, where she falls in love with a whale. The whale, Reu, returns her adoration, and transforms into a man’s body to live with her. “W

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hunting for History Books

      Sep 3, 2019

      Hunting for History Books
      11 min read

    • Article

      Russia’s Peasant History, Once Submerged, Is Brought Back Into The Light

      Aug 21, 2020

      When the Soviet Union industrialized, it destroyed much of Russia’s peasant life. Anor Tukaeva is helping to make sure that history isn’t lost.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Refracting History | Stories In Digital And Print

      Mar 4, 2021

      British Columbia’s history is told through multiple lenses. We must seek out diverse perspectives, continually reframe the ways in which we understand the past, and carefully choose formats for sharing stories. Should a particular story be told in pr

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Tallahatchie Bridge

      Apr 17, 2020

      The Tallahatchie Bridge
      5 min read

    • Article

      Native Nevada

      Jun 6, 2023

      Native Nevada
      7 min read

    • Article

      Divine Threads

      Jun 17, 2019

      Divine Threads: The Visual and Material Culture of Cantonese Opera By April Liu in Collaboration with the Museum of Anthropology Richmond: Raincoast Books, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-77327-023-4 $60.00 Hardcover Opera is an art form that presents a multi-senso

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Allure of Messy Reddit Stories

      Mar 19, 2023

      Jerusalem Demsas’s culture and entertainment picks include Children of Time, Vampire Weekend, and chasing down stories people tell—or make up—on Reddit.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Current Affairs

      Sep 21, 2022

      Wm Collins, 308pp, £20 Before Covid struck, the Prince Rupert hotel in Shrewsbury was a sumptuous, timber-framed four-star hostelry, 900 years old. But then it was forced to close and its management responded to the government’s ‘everyone in’ initiat

      6 min read

    • Article

      Kinnikinnic Night Stalking

      Sep 9, 2021

      Kinnikinnic Night Stalking
      7 min read

    • Article

      Poetry

      Jun 1, 2021

      Poetry
      3 min read

    • Article

      Inside the Billionaire Bohemian Club

      Feb 22, 2024

      Inside the Billionaire Bohemian Club
      7 min read

    Reviews for Death of a Red Heroine

    4/5

    372 ratings42 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The rain has soaked the hair
      Falling to your shoulders
      Light green in your policewoman’s
      Uniform, like the spring
      White blossom bursting
      From your arms reaching
      Into the gaping windows -
      ‘Here you are!’

      About the last thing I expected from this detective novel was a poetry-spouting Chief Inspector.

      Chen not only recites classical Chinese poetry but is himself a published poet – as well as a translator of western poems and even mysteries. And he is a bit of a gourmet as well.

      I love when writers detail meals. All too often I read of how characters ‘sat down to dinner’ and I’m just dying to know, yes but what exactly did they eat??

      So when we first meet Chief Inspector Chen as he is prepping for a housewarming dinner at his new apartment, I am delighted:

      “For the main dishes, there were chunks of pork stomach on a bed of green napa, thin slices of smoked carp spread on fragile leaves of jicai, and steamed peeled shrimp with tomato sauce. There was also a platter of eels with scallions and ginger, which he had ordered from a restaurant. He had opened a can of Meiling steamed pork, and added some green vegetables to it to make another dish. On the side, he placed a small dish of sliced tomatoes, and another of cucumbers. When the guests arrived, a soup would be made from the juice of the canned pork and canned pickle.”

      It sounds like an interesting mix of gourmet and simple homecooked dishes, which reflects on the character of Inspector Chen. An educated man and a published poet who attended the Beijing Foreign Language College, he then heads the Shanghai Police Bureau’s Special Case Squad, a job that seems to be a bit at odds with his more intellectual, thoughtful personality.

      But of course his insightfulness is key to this case.

      “She had been lying there, abandoned, naked, her long dark hair in a coil across her throat, like a snake, in full view of two strangers, only to be carried away on a stretcher by a couple of white uniformed men, and in time, opened up by an elderly medical man who examined her insides, mechanically, and sewed the body together again before it was finally sent to the mortuary. And all that time Chief Inspector Chen had been celebrating in his new apartment, having a housewarming party, drinking, dancing with a young woman reporter, talking about Tang dynasty poetry, and stepping on her bare toes.”

      Essentially, there is a dead woman whose body has been unceremoniously dumped in a garbage bag and tossed into a canal. It turns out that she is a celebrity in the political sense, as she is National Model Worker Guan Hongying, chosen as a role model by the Party. There soon emerges to be even greater political implications in this case, and Chen – as well as his subordinate Detective Yu – is forced to choose between doing what’s right for the case and the victim, or what’s right as determined by the Party.

      Politics is at the heart of this story.

      “‘Everything can be seen in terms of politics,’ Chen got up, pausing in the doorway, ‘but politics is not everything.’
      Such talk was possible now, though hardly regarded as in good taste politically. There had been opposition to Chen’s attaining promotion – something expressed by his political enemies when they praised him as ‘open’, and by his political friends when they wondered if he was too open.”

      There are High Cadres who are at the top of the ladder, and their privileged children, the High Cadre Children (HCC), who have fancy cars and live in large mansions and all those other aspects of an extravagant lifestyle. While Chen is himself a rising star (although his artistic side leads to some doubts) and has a new apartment to himself, he ranks far below these HCs and HCCs. And all of this contrasts with the life of the victim Guan, who despite her ‘celebrity’ status lived in a dormitory:

      “A closer examination revealed many signs of neglect characteristic of such dorm buildings: gaping windows, scaling cement, peeling paint, and the smell from the public bathroom permeating the corridor. Apparently each floor shared only one bathroom. And a quarter of the bathroom had been redesigned with makeshift plastic partitions into a concrete shower area.”

      Death of a Red Heroine was steeped in such vivid details of everyday life in 1990s Shanghai, both the lives of regular folk and of the privileged, sometimes surprisingly seedy.

      I have to add a note of warning to those expecting a fast-paced, exciting crime/mystery novel. This isn’t quite that. The case moves a little slowly, not just because of all that politicking going on, but because the detectives take buses, they do research at the public library, and towards the end, are forced to surreptitiously pass information to each other. It’s complicated, but the book still flows well despite its length (464 pages).

      I had a great time with this book, reading some bits of classic Chinese poetry, learning about life in 1990s China, and best of all, learning about the diverse cuisine of China. Although I am ethnically Chinese, Chinese food in Singapore is probably different from that of China (I can’t say for sure, as I’ve never been). Like the ‘across-the-bridge noodles’ (过桥米线 or guòqiáo mĭxiàn) that Detective Yu’s wife Peiqin cooks for Inspector Chen, essentially a platter of rice noodles served along with side dishes like slivers of pork, fish and vegetables, and of course some steaming hot soup.

      The story behind the noodles, according to the book, was that during the Qing Dynasty, a scholar studied on an island, his wife had to carry his meals across a long bridge and when it reached him, the noodles were cold and soggy. So the next time, she kept the noodles separate and only mixed them when with her husband. A recipe can be found here.

      I’m looking forward to the next Inspector Chen book, and can only hope that there will be plenty of foodie details to chow on.

      This review was first posted on my blog Olduvai Reads
    • 4/5
      I am glad that I read the first book of this series after all. It makes much of what Inspector Chen experienced more sense.In his first case, many protagonists, which are also encountered in later books, are presented. Likewise, one becomes more familiar with the Chinese customs, which are enormously important to know, since a determination is not necessarily designed as you are used to crime thrill. The face on the political level has to be kept constant and this makes it very difficult when the villain comes from the establishment.A young woman is found dead. She is a model worker and represents an important part of the Chinese working class. Why did she have to die? Did she lead a hidden second life that does not fit into political China? While Chen and Yu investigate, they often come up against a wall of silence.Very exciting written, it grabbed me from the first to the last page.
    • 4/5
      A murder mystery in Shanghai. The body of a woman has been found in a little visited canal. The case is investigated by the Shanghai Burea of Police Special case squad, led by leader of the squad, Chief Inspector Chen and his administrative assistant Detective Yu Guangming. The murder mystery frequently gets lost in the minutia of the explanation of the government of Shanghai in the 1990’s and the ruling communiist party. I forgot that this was a murder mystery but instead read this as a “fictionalized” history of Shanghai and it’s political commitment to China. Interesting. It will also be interesting where the next book in this series takes the reader.
    • 5/5
      Loved this book. For all of the trappings of Communism beginning to add private enterprise, the book showed that people are pretty much the same and that only the context is different.
    • 4/5
      Synopsis: Two fisherman pull in a plastic garbage bag and discover the body of a young woman. She is a party member in good standing, but she lives a very solitary life. No one seems to know her well and no one has much good - or bad - to say about her. Through a very round about series of connections, Chen finds that she was involved with a married party leader and that this man was also into sexual perversion.Review: This is a really interesting look at life in China. It presents some reasons for people in that society behaving as they do. It's also a pretty good mystery.
    • 5/5
      This is the first book in a long time that's drawn me immediately into a mystery series and every way, where I've enjoyed nearly every moment and had a hard time putting the book down. Xiaolong's balance of atmosphere, character, and plotting was masterful, and I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I will say that there were moments where the quoting was a bit on the heavy side (and this, coming from a reader who loves poetry), but on the whole, it didn't at all interfere with how much I enjoyed the book since the quotes were generally only snippets of two or three lines. And, for this being the author's first novel, I really can't complain.All told, there's no question that I'll be reading the next book in the series sooner than later. Whether looked at as a mystery or simply as a good read, there's a lot to love here, and I'd absolutely recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Our hero, the police detective who spouts ancient poetry, investigates in the face of political pressure the death of a model worker. Author tries to introduce us to aspects of Chinese life and culture.
    • 5/5
      Detective Inspector Chen investigates the murder of a young woman who was a famous model citizen and slowly discovers that she may have been devoting her daytime life to the good of the Party but spent her evenings in other pursuits. Set in Shanghai in the early 90s, this first novel in a series creates a nice balance between the actual police procedural plot and an interesting social commentary on the tricky political atmosphere in China at the time. There aren't a lot of fancy twists to the mystery itself, but the characters are very nicely drawn - I particularly like Chen as an unassuming yet tenacious detective - and the details about life in China in the 1990s were fascinating.
    • 4/5
      This book, ostensibly a murder mystery, deals with a surprising array of existential and societal issues. A police procedural mostly set in Shanghai, it also explores characters torn between their own priorities and those imposed on them by their government. We are also given a glimpse of how Western influences are starting to impact Chinese society. With a huge, culturally diverse cast of characters (nota bene: keep a list), we are provided a fascinating insight into the lives of people from a wide range of levels within the Communist Party. The Party is almost a character of its own as it pervades the story and impacts the characters’ decisions. Compelling and gritty.
    • 4/5
      This was an inspector Chen mystery. More than crime, politics drove the plot. This took place after Deng Xiaoping began his reform. It's Mao politicans vs. Xiapoing politicians; interesting, though. Besides being a chief inspector, Chen is a poet. This is book #1 in the series. I might read another one; hoping to get more culture and less politics!
    • 3/5
      The world-building is much, much more interesting than the actual mystery.
    • 4/5
      The mystery is good but the main appeal of this police procedural is seeing something of life in Shanghai China in 1990 for mid-level people. Chen & his poetry reminds me a bit of P.D. James’ Dalgliesh...
    • 4/5
      On finishing this book, I closed it feeling satisfied. This is generally all I ask of a book, but if I think back, I also remember that it took a good 200 pages for this book to get rolling and for me to really become interested and vested in it.

      Part of this is probably do to the fact that I only have a loose understanding of the events surrounding the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent Party politics that play an important part in this book. But it also just has a slow start, which isn't helped a lot by the rather dry tone Chinese literature always seems to have.

      In the end, however, what I liked so much about the book is that it's about good men trying, against almost impossible odds, to be good men. I don't mean John McClane type heros, but ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.

      Chen, the main character is a coming to terms with the fact that his life has not turned out the way he hoped. He shows a consistent moral mettle that is impossible not to respect. His partner, Yu, is a man who was given very few choices in life but his dedication to both his job, doing the right thing and his wife are heart melting. It was these men and their character that carried the day for me. I'm glad to have read the book.
    • 4/5
      Two old friends who haven't met for twenty years go fishing in a canal and discover the body of a young woman wrapped up in plastic. The case is assigned to Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police and his lieutenant Detective Yu Guangming. Chen and Yu are informed that the case has political implications and so they are going to be advised by an older party cadre. From the beginning interference comes from every one of their political superiors. They assemble irrefutable evidence that the person responsible for the murder is an HCC (High Cadre Children) who is the son of a well known older party member. Even at that stage attempts are made to move them in a different direction. Both are assigned to new investigations and both seem to be in real danger of losing their jobs. Set in the critical early years of the transition of China from communism to capitalism everything is justified in terms of "for the sake of the Party". Chen and Yu get frustrated because they can't bring the murderer to justice.

      This is the first book in the Inspector Chen Cao series, set in Shanghai in the 1990s. Chen Cao is a sensitive, poetry loving, yet tough-minded police inspector who wants to do a good job but is hamstrung by the rules he must live with. The Chinese setting gives the reader a mix of historical fiction and political/social observation. Chen is a wonderfully developed character and I liked him enough to purchase the next in the series, Loyal Character Dancer.
    • 3/5
      I rounded up to get to my three star rating. Death of a Red Heroine combines a police procedural with the setting of Shanghai soon after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Unfortunately, the criminal investigation and central mystery are boring, and the setting is not developed organically but spoon-fed to you in didactic asides that kill the flow of the story.

      I'm not a huge fan of mystery novels (though they're fine when done well), so what drew me to this book was the setting of China as rendered by a native but written in English, to avoid any problems in translation. As such, it seems appropriate to analyze the setting first. I'm a sucker for a good setting, and having a good setting can overshadow many other problems a novel has in my eyes. Much to my disappointment, however, Qiu Xiaolong's presentation of China in Death of a Red Heroine is one part setting and one part history lesson, with those two parts not melded very well. Inspector Chen will go to a temple-turned-market, following which you will get a paragraph about the history of the temple-turned-market. Inspector Chen will visit an apartment, and you will get a page on how housing allocation worked in Shanghai in 1990. Inspector Chen will walk down the street and notice a television on through a window, and you'll get a non sequitur sentence about how China is currently abuzz over a Japanese soap opera about a girl dying of cancer. There are authors that manage to give you a view into what life was like in that setting while simultaneously telling a strong story, just look at Zola, but unfortunately Qiu Xiaolong does not prove himself capable of such a feat in this book, and doesn't even really seem to try to mesh the story with the didactic asides that he delivers. The disjointed combination teaches you something about 1990 Shanghai, but doesn't do it in a very satisfying manner.

      You at least get something out of the setting, even if it the delivery is amateurish, but the story doesn't have much in the way of redeeming features. The mystery is boring, with it taking chapters and chapters before the inspectors follow up on even the most obvious clues or put together the most basic extrapolations. This isn't a detective story with a Sherlock Holmes character that can make brilliant deductive leaps, instead I was under the impression it was trying to be a realistic portrayal of an investigation, but unfortunately these detectives are slower and more naive than even a below-average person would be in their position. At one point while discussing motive the inspectors hypothesize that if the victim was pregnant, the suspect might have killed her to cover that up. But then inspector Chen remembers that the victim was not pregnant, so that theory is discounted. Apparently it never crosses the inspector's mind that a woman having an affair with a married man might lie about a pregnancy in order to spur him to get a divorce. The inspectors are so bad at their jobs that I considered the possibility that Qiu Xiaolong was using their performance as a criticism of the Chinese job allocation system, but there's no tonal support for that idea. Beyond the case, inspector Chen's social life was boring. In the first part of the book he's attracted to Wang, in what is a very low-passion romance. Still, it seems hot and steamy compared to the second romance between Chen and Ling which is introduced two-thirds into the book, and which is one of the most boring segments I've read in a long time. At no point does the book make you care about this thrown-together love triangle. In general Death of a Red Heroine is terrible at creating dramatic tension. Chen simultaneously wants to be a poet and a police inspector, but very little is done with this internal struggle. Likewise, when Chen starts to get political push-back to his investigation he immediately adopts an attitude of "I have to do this or else I won't be able to look myself in the mirror." A more conflicted character might be less heroic, but could be significantly more interesting, but instead Qiu Xiaolong gives us a rather boring protagonist.

      A setting that disappointed in delivery and a mediocre mystery and story more generally meant that this wasn't a very good book. Still, I learned something about 90s China and the story, while uninteresting, wasn't terrible and didn't irritate me in any particular way. I can't claim that it was any better than "functional," but that's enough to get you a 2.5 star rating, which I rounded up. This, however, is one of those 3 star books I'll not be recommending.
    • 3/5
      Tedious with too much detail. Lost interest and flipped to the end after 200+ pages
    • 4/5
      eath of a Red Heroine (Soho Crime) - Qiu Xiaolong

      "Who says that the splendor of a grass blade returns
      The Love of the spring that forever returns?"

      With this ends "Death of a Red Heroine". Here the main protagonist wonders whether a son's return for his mother's love is always inadequate, as well as one's responsability to one's country.

      When I tackled this book, I didn’t know what to expect.

      Xiaolong’s main protagonist is not an ordinary Chinese policeman. He’s a poet and translator of T. S. Eliot. There is a tendency to quote Chinese classical poetry as a counterpoint and commentary on the action. As usual in Crime Fiction, this is a device, a somewhat contrived one in my view, but crime novel protagonists seem to need an approach, and this one is Chen’s.


      You can read the rest of this review on my blog.
    • 4/5
      The naked body of a young woman is found in a remote canal. Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Special Case Squad, Homicide Division, Shanghai Police Bureau and his deputy, Detective Yu Guangming, discover that she is Guan Hongying, a national model worker. How could a young woman with such a responsible position have come to this end? Who might have killed her? Her coworkers and neighbors all swear that she had no boyfriend, that she lived a quiet, exemplary life, devoted to the Party and her work. Chen’s supervisors, Party Secretary Li and Commisar Zhang, insist this is a political case, but the detectives feel it must have been a personal crime.

      What a fascinating look at China in the nineties – a country moving into the future, affected by modern technology and Western influence, but with a cadre of political leaders who hold tight to the ideals of Communism. Or at least who give voice to those ideals. For, in reality, who you know is much more important than what you know. The children and friends of high-ranking officials get the plum positions, best apartments (or mansions), sleek cars and high-end consumer goods, while the masses struggle to raise their families on less-than-subsistence wages, queuing in ever-longer lines at state outlets or paying a premium to buy at “free” markets. Regardless, everyone must watch what s/he says and does, for anyone is subject to being charged with that most serious and nebulous of infractions: crime and corruption under Western bourgeois influence.

      I really liked how Qiu wrote these characters. The evolving relationship between Detective Yu and Chief Inspector Chen was particularly interesting. Working independently for much of the book, they still manage to come together as a team and to truly support one another. I loved how inventive they were in communicating sensitive information to one another without drawing further attention to their continued efforts.

      Some of the minor characters were a complete delight. Old Hunter, a retired police officer and Yu’s father, is now a volunteer neighborhood patroller, checking to make sure that private peddlers adhere to the socialist ideals in conducting their commercial transactions. Overseas Chinese Lu, Chen’s long-time friend, is an entrepreneur with a successful restaurant, Moscow Suburb. Little Zhao, a bureau driver, keeps his ear to the ground and passes along helpful gossip (or warnings) to Chen. Yu’s wife, Peiqin, is a valuable sounding board and go-between. Wang Feng, a reporter with the Wenhui Daily (one of China’s most influential papers), is a good friend, a valuable source of information, and a formidable ally.

      But it is Chief Inspector Chen who truly shines. Chen is a contrast: a man educated in literature, a published poet, and frequent translator of mysteries, but who is also a methodical investigator concerned only with bringing the perpetrator to justice. The reader gains increased insight into the complicated workings of the Chinese Party system as Chen is forced to consider politics and to find a way to work within and around the system. I loved the poetry he quoted and how seamlessly Qiu wove these couplets into the story, showing how a remembered passage might give Chen an idea for which direction to next take his investigation.

      The city of Shanghai is practically a character, the scenes are so vivid. Qiu describes the bustle of a major metropolitan area, the squalor of tenement living, the luxurious surroundings of a major hotel or old family mansion, and the quiet pleasure of a park. And the food – crab, dumplings, rice balls, perfectly ripe fruit, hot soups, fresh fish, succulent duck, and many delicacies unfamiliar to Westerners. I think even if I had never been to Shanghai I would have a clear picture in my head of the surroundings based on Qiu’s descriptive passages.

      The suspect / perpetrator is pretty clearly identified early on, but that’s not a problem here. It is not the kind of suspense/thriller/mystery that relies on secrets, violent altercations and dangerous situations. Rather, the joy of this novel is watching how Chen builds his case. I’ll definitely read more of this series.
    • 4/5
      A prominent young Communist, a "national model worker," is found dead by two fishermen in a Shanghai canal. The case is given to Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau to solve, until his investigation starts to tread on party territory.This was a very different kind of mystery, and it took me a while to get used to the rhythm of it. I don't pretend to have any knowledge of Chinese politics in the 1990's, and some of that knowledge would have helped me. But once I got into the swing of it, I liked this book. The killer is identified early, but the twists and turns of Communist party politics keep the story going. There are many references to Chinese poems, and although the story drags in a few places, I still think it is a worthwhile read. I'm anxious to carry on with the series.
    • 4/5
      An excellent, compelling mystery, even if you're not interested in China/modern Chinese history. But as someone who is interested in Chinese history (modern and otherwise), I found Death of a Red Heroine to be even better than your average mystery. Technically there's really only one main character, Chief Inspector Chen and a few minor characters, including Chen's partner, Detective Yu. But, in reality, there are two main characters Chen and the CCP, which makes the book even more tense and interesting than it could be by just being a mystery novel. Chen runs afoul of the CCP, which is not surprising, but is done masterfully well. Yu is a worthy partner, pulling his weight and doing his job well when Chen's hands are tied. There are other minor characters; Yu's wife, Chen's former lover and a possibly current love interest, as well as characters who pass in and out of both Chen and Yu's lives (some are police and some are not). While some of these characters are only there for a few pages, Qiu Xiaolong does them all justice. The ending of the book is not happy, though the case is all by solved, it is satisfying -- especially if you have any knowledge of Communist China from the late 80s, early 90s (the novel is set in 1990, a year after Tiananmen Square). Overall, this book was fantastic and I immediately acquired a copy of the second book in the series.
    • 5/5
      Excellent story Inspector Chen is a great character and the mystery is great I love how the story unfolds. Great novel to read on a night when you just want to relax and get caught up in a whole different world and culture.
    • 4/5
      Inspector Chen has more than he can handle when a National Model Worker is found murdered in a canal close to Shanghai. As Chen delves into her private life, he discovers a case with political implications. A model worker and active in the Communist party, Guan Hongying also had an affair with the married son of an old high cadre, an affair that may have led to her death. In the midst of a changing China, Inspector Chen must navigate through party politics and newly established markets to uncover a murder that displays a transforming society in its seedy underbelly and clear promise.
    • 5/5
      Two old friends who haven't met for twenty years go fishing in a canal and discover the body of a young woman, wrapped up in plastic.The case is taken on by Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police and his lieutenant Detective Yu Guangming.This is the first in Qiu Xialong's Inspector Chen series and so the author spends a little time introducing these characters to the reader, exploring the relationships between them. Chen was aware of Yu's acerbic undertone. His accelerated promotion was going to take some living down, not to mention his new apartment. A certain measure of antagonism was hardly surprising, especially from Detective Yu, who had entered the force earlier and had technical training and a police family background.Chen is an unusual policeman, a graduate in English literature, and a published poet. Chen had not intended to be a cop - not in his college years. He had been a published poet as well as a top student at Beijing Foreign Language Institute. He had his mind set on literary pursuits. Just one month before graduation, he had applied to an M.A. program in English and American literature, a decision his mother had approved, since Chen's father had been a well-known professor of the Neo-Confucian school. He was informed, however, that a promising job was waiting for him in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Chen and Yu are informed that the case has political implications and so they are not only to be advised by an older party cadre, and under the direct supervision of a party secretary, but from the beginning interference comes from their political superiors.They assemble irrefutable evidence that the person responsible for the murder is an HCC, the son of a well known older party cadre. Even at that stage attempts are made to deflect them. Both are assigned to new jobs. Both seem to be in real danger of losing their jobs.I found DEATH OF A RED HEROINE fascinating reading. It describes the political changes that Chinese society underwent first of all with the establishment of the Communist Revolution, and then with the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. At the time the novel is set, in the early 1990s, the winds of change are blowing again, and everything is justified in terms of "for the sake of the Party". Chen and Yu get frustrated because they can't always get on with their first concern, the bringing of a murderer to justice.DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is a novel you need to read patiently. Its path meanders a little, and the story is littered with references to Chinese literature, which for me didn't always add to the crime fiction aspects. You will see that I am "counting" this novel in the Historical Fiction Challenge. It is recognisably a "police procedural" too.
    • 3/5
      To my mind, the very best crime fiction in the world provides a window into the world in which it is set. Be that the psyche of the people, the machinations of the society, how a community is structured and operates, the laws and mores, even the way in which authorities deal with the disorder, how they implement authority. DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is set in Shanghai in 1990, a year after Tiananmen Square, an ancient city with a population tightly controlled by the Communist Party. Poet Chen Cao is an unlikely policeman, forced into the job by the party system, he's caught between a love of poetry and his own innate sense of responsibility. A loner, a romantic soul, he heads a special unit which is given the task of investigating the brutal murder of Guam Hongying. A National Model Worker, the death of Hongying is viewed as much a political situation as it is a crime.DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is a very intricate book, exploring many aspects of the society in which the action takes place. Firstly the character of Inspector Chen Cao, a maverick (as much as you can be under totalitarian control), he's a poet, a loner, a romantic soul forced into the life of a policeman. Enjoying the very small privileges that come with rank, he's also uncomfortable with their existence. He's more fortunate in his friendships - both with long-term friends and with his colleagues. The second aspect of the book that is carefully explored is the victim herself. Her status as a National Model Worker means that her death hits the desks, and the minds of the upper echelons of the Communist Party. Her treatment, in death, as it was in life, is slightly different. The way that her status, and her life was regarded is a particularly interesting aspect of this book, as it leads to the final component of the book worth mentioning - Chinese Society in its own right. Possibly the strongest aspect of the book, because the culture and political system of the society imposes itself over every aspect of it's people's lives. From the way that the investigation is regarded, to the way that Hongying and Chen Coa lead their lives, every move everybody makes is somehow choreographed by the ever present "Party" and its cadres. The parts of the book that don't work quite as well are the plot, and some of the messages that the author is attempting to impart. Second part first - there is some rather heavy-handed repetition of the ills of Communist China. Whether or not you agree or disagree with the messages being delivered, constant repetition doesn't help. The first part - the plot - well got more than a bit hazy at times. Sometimes this was because we'd wandered so far from the central point of the book memory faded, at other points it was simply because plot points sort of got "dumped" into the narrative. Either way, it's not the most complex or unexpected resolution to the death of an attractive young woman.It also isn't on the fast, tense, light read side of the scale. This is a book which will require a bit of concentration, some acceptance that as with many debuts, there's a bit of work going on to establish a character and his place in the world. But as a lead into a new series, this book has ticked yes to a lot of questions. This is undoubtedly a series that I want to catch up with. In a hurry.
    • 4/5
      On May 11, 1990, the body of a well-known national model worker is found in an out-of-the-way canal in Shanghai. Chief Inspector Chen Cao (a poet and translator in addition to being a detective) is called in to investigate. At first it looks as though this isn’t a politically-motivated crime, but the case soon leads Chen and his partner, Yu, to suspect a well-known photographer and son of one of the old high-powered cadres.Death of a Red Heroine is a little bit outside the realm of mysteries I normally read. I’m unfamiliar with the setting (1990 China), so the fact that the author intersperses bits of 20th century Chinese history into the story was a great help to me. I liked how the author managed to interweave history with fiction to create believable characters with believable motives, highlighting the fact that Chen is a victim of Party politics himself. I also liked how poetry is sprinkled into the story, but sometimes I felt as though it was a bit too much and added very little to the plot of the novel—except to prove how well-read in Chinese and English literature everyone in the novel seems to be.However, Chen’s interest in English and American literature makes him a standout among other fictional detectives, a three-dimensional character with interests outside of his work. Also interesting is his personal life—his relationship with an old girlfriend from the past (sadly not well-developed) and his budding relationship with a young reporter.As a mystery, however, the book suffers from freshman syndrome. The plot is a little bit predictable, but I enjoyed how the story was wrapped up in the end. This is a solid, enjoyable mystery, and I’m looking forward to seeing more character development in the other books in the series.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. The writing style is very different from American mysteries, and I enjoyed that. Chief Inspector Chen is investigating the murder of a political party member and it's interesting to see the pull between politics and doing what Chen believes is right. Chen is a character that grew on me. From the start he's very poetic, and the way he views the world around him is poetic too. Normally I'm not big on poetry, but there were a lot of nice quotes in this book, and Chen had a way of making them fit his life. The pace of the book was very relaxed, not a usual fast paced mystery. I liked that. There was a concentration on details and relationships and it was interesting to read about the changes that were affecting China in the 1990s. Like others have said, it wasn't really about finding out who the killer was, but the journey that Inspector Chen took, and the discoveries he made along the way, as well as his perserverance.
    • 4/5
      Great characters and descriptions of Chinese culture and conditions as well an excellent police procedural. I would have given it 4 1/2 stars if I could.
    • 4/5
      Death of a Red Heroine is serviceable as a police procedural and brilliant as a look a people’s lives during a period of enormous social upheaval. The main character, Chief Inspector Chen Cao, is head of the special case squad in the Homicide Division of the Shanghai Police Bureau in 1990. When the book opens, Chairman Mao has been dead for more than a decade, only a few years have passed since China’s new leader Deng Xiaoping proclaimed “to get rich is glorious,” and the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square is still painfully fresh.Chen must investigate the murder of a young woman named Guan Hongying who was a “model worker,” a selfless citizen dedicated only to embodying the ideals of the Communist Party. As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that Guan was leading a double life – model worker by day and transgressive mistress to a vicious and dangerous married man by night.The strength of the novel lies not in uncovering the identity of the murderer (which is clear from early in the story), but in the fascinating portrait of China during the time it was beginning to open to the rest of the world, and was on the road to becoming a global super power. Chen and his generation are disillusioned by the corruption of the Communist regime, the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, and the repression of the Tiananmen incident, but uneasy about the rapid and massive economic and social changes that make their daily lives like a trip through Alice’s Looking Glass. Death of a Red Heroine is filled with intriguing details, how you shop for dinner both at the state-run market (where prices are fixed to make delicacies available for everyone -- but you can't actually find those delicacies for sale), and the newly legitimized free market (where everything you can imagine is on the shelves, if you have the money buy it.) Men and women can dance together in public for the first time in decades. “Ordinary” people can get tickets to movies that only Party Members are supposed to see. The idea that the law applies equally to all people is gaining ground, but the State still has enormous power over what career you can follow and who you can and can’t marry.Those who enjoy mysteries will find things to like in Death of a Red Heroine, but most of all I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the country that the US owes $850 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) and what is was like for the people of China to shift from an inflexible Communist system to the economically bounteous--but still repressive--system of today.
    • 4/5
      The idea of reading a mystery novel over 400 pages long is not inherently appealing. I find that mysteries are usually brain candy -- the best for me reveal something about the local ecology or politics (hence I really like the "Florida weird" mystery writers -- Carl Hiassen, Randy Wayne White, Tim Dorsey). When I travel to a new destination, it's fun to pick up the local mystery writer to catch a flavor of the place.Now and then, a long mystery, like Eliot Patterson's Skull Mantra about contemporary Tibet, has drawn me into the cultural milieu and society -- eclipsing the murder that is being investigated.Death of a Red Heroine is such a novel. While the discovery of a female corpse in a remote canal in Saigon is the catalyst for the tale, the book is much more a portrait of life in China in the early 1990s, shortly after Tianamen. The murdered woman was a "national role-model worker," and hence the investigation takes on political overtones, especially when it is discovered she has ties to a prominent HCC -- High Cadre Child -- a photographer whose father was one of the founders of the Chinese Republic.Chief Detective Chen, head of Special Investigations, is in charge of the case. A poet, scholar of classical and contemporary literature, and a foodie connoisseur, he is an engaging protagonist.But the aspect of the novel that I found most interesting was the incredibly detailed life of ordinary people crowded into the booming metropolis of Saigon. Aspects of life, like local voluntary "spy patrols" that I found quite chilling, are regarded as ordinary and actually, beneficial, to the maintenance of social order.The mystery unfolds in a believable and interesting fashion, but it is the cultural portrait of this book that I found really intriguing.
    • 4/5
      Set in Shanghai shortly after the Tiananmen Square events of 1989, this story combines a mystery with perspective and commentary upon the upheavals that occurred in Chinese politics and society during that period. The young feel that the classless society has become a fiction hiding privilege and corruption. The old cadre feels that the younger generation is losing sight of the revolutionary ideals that forged the nation. The socialist economy is grinding gears against Deng Xiaoping's market economy reforms. In the midst of this turmoil, Inspector Chen tries to unravel a murder fraught with political ramifications.The story moves along smoothly, never lagging despite the frequent digressions to explain some historical point or to illustrate some aspect of modern Chinese life. It is populated with a colorful cast of characters drawn from all walks of life, from high-ranking Politburo members to impoverished street vendors. Despite the fluent English, the book conveys a real sense of a different culture. Some may be indifferent to the numerous verses from classical Chinese poetry quoted by Inspector Chen—Qiu has published two volumes of translated Chinese poetry in addition to his mysteries—but I found them a nice bonus, adding a bit of beauty at the same time as they illuminated a feeling that Chen was trying to convey.This is definitely recommended.