Death of a Red Heroine (Soho crime)
Soho Crime - Soho Crime
Release date: 2003-07-01
Paperback
Author: Qiu Xiaolong
Crime & mystery, Police, Fiction, Fiction - Mystery/ Detective, Mystery/Suspense, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective - Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective - General, Crime & Thriller
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Death of a Red Heroine (Soho crime)
Date undefinedI'm sure it's been covered in other reviews but "Death of a Red Heroine"is no great mystery novel or police procedural, but, the investigation (in my opinion)is merely a pretext to explore the zeitgeist of post-Tiananmen Shanghai. Overall I found the novel enjoyable enough to pick up "A Loyal Character Dancer" (the next novel in the Chen series).
Death of a Red Heroine (Soho crime)
Date undefinedAs a police procedural this novel fails. It is way too long. Half of it should have been cut. There is no real mystery, the clues are obvious, the murderer revealed half-way through the novel. The motive behind the killing is totally predictable. However, what saves this novel is it's fascinating depiction of the incongruities of modern Chinese life. The main character, Detective Inspector Chen is a poet forced by the circumstances of Communist Chinese life into being a police officer. The novel is sprinkled with quotes from Classical Chinese poetry. Chen is an honorable and decent man trying to do good in the society in which he finds himself. The most intriguing elements of the novel are the depictions of male/female relationships both marital and non-marital. Chen's assistant Yu's marriage is movingly described. Chen himself struggles with his attraction for a Beijing librarian whose family is high up in the Party, and his relationship with a Shanghai journalist. Always delightful are the descriptions of the many meals that Chen shares with other as the novel unfolds. Secondary characters are colorfully described. At it's center it is a meditation on how politics drives justice. This is the first in the series that I have read. It shows potential. I hope the others are better plotted.
Death of a Red Heroine (Soho crime)
Date undefinedI cannot fathom the general positive response to this novel. True enough, here and there crop up like mushrooms after the rain a few cavils about some features; but, on the whole, reader reaction has been overwhelming enthusiastic--enough, clearly, to produce a minor constellation of gold stars (gongxi, gongxi to the writer!) and encourage the publication of further ventures in what has become a Bund-and-beyond series.
Perhaps the mystery within the mystery might be revealed, as in a sudden enlightenment of the Kill Bill variety, if someone with the inclination to detail the particulars of both reviews and reviewers makes a complete diaocha of the Sinologic knowledge of all parties concerned.
Still, while the social coordinates and the basic interactions of the characters are plausible on an East or West grid, the plot is still plodding; the personalities predictable; and the poetry, as translated, irritatingly insipid.
