Qiu Xiaolong's Top 3 Books

Writing crime novels sometimes means having a strong social conscience. Because noir has its side of social criticism. I am referring perhaps even more to the noir genre that in Spain could represent Vazquez Montalban o Gonzalez Ledesma. Only luckily Spain is not China. Because good old Qiu gets expensive each of his new novels. Because the Chinese regime has a memory, an extensive memory that places it as much at the center of the Tiananmen demonstrations as the famous guy in front of the tank.

Nothing darker from which to compose plots in the shadows of our world than societies marked by authoritarian spaces. Even more so when the matter is disguised and masked with some kind of good-natured appearance. And yes, it happened in the past to the aforementioned Spanish authors and it happens to them, for the part that is up to Qiu.

That is why the narrative of this master of criminal narrative gains in authenticity when, in addition, everything is tinged with sleaze twinned with power. His inspector Chen Cao will have to commune partly with mill wheels to get ahead. But he also knows how to move in the shadows to achieve the most honorable goals possible. Now that the 90s are back, we can enjoy a series that may break into new installments of the XNUMXst century.

Qiu Xiaolong's Top 3 Recommended Novels

Death of a red heroine

Rivers are that rescued place where the criminal on duty can get rid of a body. And the Huangpu knows how to swallow bodies like no other. But the bodies insist on coming to the surface so that someone dares to discover the ominous truth...

One Friday in May 1990, Gao Ziling, captain of the patrol boat Vanguardia, goes fishing with a friend he hasn't seen since high school. On the way back, in the Baili channel, about thirty kilometers west of Shanghai, something impedes the advance of the patrol boat. When Gao dives into the water to see what's wrong with the propeller, he discovers a large black plastic bag with the body of a naked young woman inside.

Captain Gao immediately notifies the police and, coincidentally, Sub-Inspector Yu, who works under Chief Inspector Chen, answers his call. The latter, recently promoted and having opened his new apartment, will soon discover that the young woman, an employee of the Number One department store in Shanghai, was a model worker whose dedication to the cause of the Party made her a celebrity. Now he must investigate what is hidden behind the death of that "red heroine".

Death of a red heroine

the shanghai dragon

If someone tried to silence Qiu Xiaolong from the upper echelons of Chinese power, novels like this one end up becoming complete revenge. Because nothing worse than presenting a symmetrical portrait between reality and fiction. As dark as true.

Everyone in the special cases squad in Shanghai is stunned: with the excuse of promoting him to a bureaucratic position, they have removed Chief Inspector Chen from the most sensitive files. After verifying that they are trying to lure him into a trap, Chen decides to get away from Shanghai, although this will not prevent him from attending to the request for help of a beautiful and melancholic young woman.

Chen becomes involved in a decidedly mine-ridden case, as he investigates those who persecute him to the point of putting a price on his life. The now ex-inspector faces the most dangerous investigation of his career, precisely when an ambitious senior officer and his wife embody a communist renewal. And it is that while revolutionary songs still resonate in everyone's minds, and despite the propaganda that speaks of transparency and modernization, ambition and corruption are rampant in today's China.

the shanghai dragon

The riddle of China

In certain places, suicides proliferate just when the ideology in power finds more obstacles; or when you have to cover up your miseries. The question is to agree with the official version or pull a bit of the obvious thread that shows that this violence was never self-inflicted until death.

Chief Inspector Chen Cao finds himself in a tricky situation: As one of Shanghai's most respected police officers, he is tasked by the party with closing the case of the shady death of Zhou Keng, who headed the Shanghai Urban Development Committee when several of its corrupt practices were denounced on the internet.

After being stripped of his position, Zhou reportedly hanged himself while in custody. Even as Party leaders eagerly await Zhou's death to be ruled a suicide and for the notorious Chief Inspector Chen to endorse that conclusion, some pieces do not fit the sequence of events.

The riddle of China
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