Mysteries from Asia - China
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| David Rotenberg |
"This is the first book in the Inspector Zhong Fong series. I've read out of order, this being the first book and I've now finished the series. Excellent and probably better to have read in sequence as it would have been fuller and more complete. But having said that, each story on its own is a fascinating read. You get a perspective of the Chinese culture as China moves from a closed Communist society to one trying to open its doors to trade and foreign money. Shanghai is a very interesting city. Do I want to visit? I'm not sure, but it's fun reading about it.
In this mix, Inspector Fong, head of Special Investigations in Shanghai must try to work within severe constraints to try and solve two gruesome murders. He faces severe constrictions from his superiors, who plot to oust him, work with the American wife of the first victim and also fight the ghosts of his wife and the tragedy that befell her. It's a page turner and a fast - paced story. Fong is a very sympathetic character and a superb detective.
I also enjoyed his cast of supporters, especially his forensic specialist, Lily. Amanda Pitman, the American, is also an interesting character and I enjoyed the developing relationship between her and Fong. The Canadian in the mix, Geoffrey Hyland, the lover of Fong's dead wife, is brought in to provide ammunition for Fong's arrest for the possible murder of his wife. And let's not forget the killer himself, trained in Taipei to be a killing machine.
There are plots and sub-plots and all the while Fong works to solve these murders and find out who is pulling the strings and why? It's unfortunate that Rotenberg only wrote five books in this series. All are excellent and entertaining. One of my favourite series. (4 stars)"
"Detective Fong, former head of Special Investigations, has been exiled to Northwestern China. Two men come and whisk him away in the middle of the night to investigate the brutal murder of seventeen men." I gave it 4 stars.
"Detective Fong has regained his position as head of Special Investigations in Shanghai. All seems under control until one of Shanghai's state run abortion clinics explodes in a ball of fire. A note is left in English, then a second clinic is attacked." I gave it 4 stars.
"In the latest installment in the Zhong Fong series. The city's 18 million residents are hurtling toward modernization, and hits home when Fong's rooms at the Shanghai Theatre are being condo-ized and he can buy them at a special price four years worth of his salary. The night watchman summons Fong to the theatre where finds his old rival Geoffrey Highland swinging from a rope at center stage." I gave it 4 stars.
"As Shanghai surpasses Hong Kong as Asia’s most important city, Zhong Fong’s Office of Special Investigations faces an increasingly sophisticated, and increasingly global, breed of criminal.
When Fong follows a disturbing lead, he finds himself in the rural backwater of Anhui Province. Here, he is shocked to discover a blood-trafficking racket and a massive outbreak of AIDS. In pursuit of the blood traffickers, Fong embarks on what proves to be the longest journey of his life. It will eventually take him to the streets of Vancouver – and a meeting with a man who holds an old, and potentially lethal, grudge." I rated it 4 stars.
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| Qiu Xialong |
"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."
"Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is often assigned cases considered politically "sensitive," and now the Minister of Public Security insists that Chen personally take on a 'special assignment.' Leery of international embarrassment, the party is concerned about rumors related to Chairman Mao. Jiao, the granddaughter of an actress who had a 'special relationship' to Mao has moved into a luxury apartment and become involved with a new social set centered around the remnants of pre-Communist Shanghai society. All without any visible means of support.
Worried that Jiao has inherited some sort of artifact that could prove damaging to Mao's reputation, Chen has been given a few short days to infiltrate her social circle, determine if the feared material exists and, if it does, retrieve it quietly. And if he fails to solve this 'Mao case, ' the consequences will be unpleasant for all concerned."
The other books in the series are -
- A Loyal Character Dancer (2002)
- When Red is Black (2004)
- A Case of Two Cities (2005)
- Red Mandarin Dress (2007)
- Don't Cry, Tai Lake (2012)
- Enigma of China (2013)
- Shanghai Redemption (2015)
- Becoming Inspector Chen (2016)
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| Eliot Pattison |
"The corpse is missing its head and is dressed in American clothes. Found by a Tibetan prison work gang on a windy cliff, the grisly remains clearly belong to someone too important for Chinese authorities to bury and forget. So the case is handed to veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun. Methodical, clever Shan is the best man for the job, but he too is a prisoner, deported to Tibet for offending someone high up in Beijing's power structure. Granted a temporary release, Shan is soon pulled into the Tibetan people's desperate fight for its sacred mountains and the Chinese regime's blood-soaked policies. Then, a Buddhist priest is arrested, a man Shan knows is innocent. Now time is running out for Shan to find the real killer."
"In Water Touching Stone, the sequel to the internationally acclaimed The Skull Mantra, Shan Tao Yun is cloistered in a remote Tibetan sanctuary when he receives shattering news. A teacher revered by the oppressed has been found slain and, one by one, her orphaned students have followed her to her grave, victims of a killer harboring unfathomable motives. Abandoning his mountain hermitage, Shan Tao Yun, a former Beijing police inspector who has been exiled to Tibet, embarks on a search for justice. Shadowed by bizarre tales of an unleashed 'demon,' Shan braces himself for even darker imaginings as he stalks a killer and fights to restore spiritual balance to the ancient and tenuous splendor of Tibet."
"In an earlier time, Shan Tao Yun was an Inspector stationed in Beijing. But he lost his position, his family and his freedom when he ran afoul of a powerful figure high in the Chinese government. Released unofficially from the work camp to which he'd been sentenced, Shan has been living in remote mountains of Tibet with a group of outlawed Buddhist monks.
Without status, official identity, or the freedom to return to his former home in Beijing, Shan has just begun to settle into his menial job as an inspector of irrigation and sewer ditches in a remote Tibetan township when he encounters a wrenching crime scene. Strewn across the grounds of an old Buddhist temple undergoing restoration are the bodies of two unidentified men and a Tibetan nun. Shan quickly realizes that the murders pose a riddle the Chinese police might in fact be trying to cover up. When he discovers that a nearby village has been converted into a new internment camp for Tibetan dissidents arrested in Beijing’s latest pacification campaign, Shan recognizes the dangerous landscape he has entered.
To find justice for the victims and to protect an American woman who witnessed the murders, Shan must navigate through the treacherous worlds of the internment camp, the local criminal gang, and the government’s rabid pacification teams, while coping with his growing doubts about his own identity and role in Tibet."
The other books in this series are -
- Bone Mountain (#3 / 2002)
- Beautiful Ghosts (#4 / 2004)
- Prayer of the Dragon (#5 / 2007)
- The Lord of Death (#6 / 2009)
- Soul of Fire (#8 / 2014)
- Skeleton God (#9 / 2017)
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| Elsa Hart |
"On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell.
Li Du was an imperial Chinese librarian. Now he is an exile. In 1780, three years of wandering have brought him to Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border. He expects a quiet outpost barely conscious of its place within the empire, but Dayan is teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. The crowds have been drawn by the promise of an unmatched spectacle; an eclipse of the sun, commanded by the Emperor himself.
Amid the frenzy, Li Du befriends an elderly Jesuit astronomer. Hours later, the man is murdered in the home of the local magistrate, and Li Du suspects it was no random killing. Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary, the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and the traveling storyteller who can't keep his own story straight.
Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see the pass over Jade Dragon Mountain that will take him out of China forever. But he cannot ignore the murder that the town is all too eager to forget. As Li Du investigates, he begins to suspect that the murderer intends to kill again. The eclipse is coming. Li Du must solve the murder before the sun disappears. If he does not, then someone, perhaps Li Du himself, will never again see its light."
The other two books in this series are -
- The White Mirror (2016)
- City of Ink (2018)
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| Tom Bradby |
"Shanghai, 1926: a sultry city lousy with opium, warlords, and corruption at the highest levels. Into this steamy morass walks Richard Field, an idealistic Brit haunted by his past and recently appointed to the international police. He's not there long before called to the flat of a Russian prostitute, former daughter of privilege found sadistically murdered, handcuffed to her bed. When he discovers among her possessions a cryptic shipping log, he senses that this murder is more than a random crime of perverse passion. What unfolds is a searing story that propels Field into a confrontation with the city's most ruthless and powerful gangster, and a dangerous attraction to another salacious Russian whose sordid connections seem destined to make her the next victim."
So there you go. If you enjoy exotic locales with your touch of mystery, you might like to check out some of these writers. Enjoy!
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