Review: Enigma of China by Qiu Xiaolong

A Mysterious Review of Enigma of China by Qiu Xiaolong. An Inspector Chen Mystery.

Review summary: This crime novel set in China is structured mostly as a whodunit/howdunit-style police procedural. The premise is a solid one, but isn't really developed much beyond the setup and is resolved in a rather disappointing manner. Overall, not a bad mystery but rather a somewhat mundane, if also a not uninteresting, one. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Enigma of China
Qiu Xiaolong
An Inspector Chen Mystery
Minotaur Books (June 2013)

Publisher synopsis: Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is in an unusual situation — a poet by training and inclination, he was assigned by the party to the Police Department after he graduated college, where he has continued to shine. Now he's a rising cadre in the party, in line to take over the top politic position in the police department, while being one of most respected policeman in the department. Which is why he's brought in by the Party to sign off on the investigation into the death of Zhou Keng.

Zhou Keng — a trusted princeling, son of a major party member — was head of the Shanghai Housing Development Committee when a number of his corrupt practices were exposed on the internet. Removed from his position and placed into extra-legal detention, Zhou apparently hanged himself while under guard. While the Party is anxious to have Zhou's death declared a suicide, and for the renowned Chief Inspector Chen to sign off on that conclusion, the sequence of events don't quite add up. Now Chen will have to decide what to do – investigate the death as a possible homicide and risk angering unseen powerful people, or seek the justice that his position requires him to strive for.