Book 13: "Death of a Red Heroine" by Qiu Xiaolong
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 13:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeSurprised at the resentment shown by Guan's neighbour, Chen said, "No matter in what position we work, we're all working for socialist China."
"Working for socialist China?" her voice rose querulously. "Last month I was laid off from the state-run factory. I need to feed my son; his father died several years ago. So making dumplings all day is what I do now, from seven to seven, if you want to call that working for socialist China. And I have to sell them at the food market at six in the morning."
"I'm sorry to hear that Comrade Yuan," he said. "Right now China is in a transitional period, but things will get better."
"It's not your fault. Why should you feel sorry? Just spare me a political lecture about it. Comrade Guan Hongying did not want to make friends with us. Period."
Guan Hongying, whose given name meant Red Heroine, was a national model worker whose life was held up as an example to all China, but she still ended up dead, wrapped in a garbage bag and dumped in a little-used canal.
This is the first in a series of police procedurals set in a rapidly-changing Shanghain in the 1990s. Chief Inspector Chen Cao has been promoted due to his current role due to the patronage of Party Secretary Li, and his colleague Detective Yu is resentful about this, but they knuckle down to investigating the murder, even when a surprising development leads to political ramifications that could threaten both their careers.
One thing that comes through clearly in the book is how elderly people, finding it hard to make ends meet on their pensions as inflation soars, are taking part-time jobs to earn extra money. There is Commissar Zhang, whose advice Chen has to listen to although Party Secretary Li tacitly makes it clear that does not need to follow it, an old woman selling ices in the street, for some reason still wearing an ancient Best Socialist Mobile Service Woman* armband, Uncle Bao, who runs the telephone kiosk outside Guan's building and provides the clue that leads to a breakthrough in the stagnating case, and Detective Yu's old father, Old Wang, an ex-policeman who patrols the local market and warns Chen when he is straying into dangerously political waters.
A fasinating story due to its setting, but the mystery is not in fact very mysterious at all, and the policemen are not terribly proactive in their investigations.
* euphemism for prostitute
"Working for socialist China?" her voice rose querulously. "Last month I was laid off from the state-run factory. I need to feed my son; his father died several years ago. So making dumplings all day is what I do now, from seven to seven, if you want to call that working for socialist China. And I have to sell them at the food market at six in the morning."
"I'm sorry to hear that Comrade Yuan," he said. "Right now China is in a transitional period, but things will get better."
"It's not your fault. Why should you feel sorry? Just spare me a political lecture about it. Comrade Guan Hongying did not want to make friends with us. Period."
Guan Hongying, whose given name meant Red Heroine, was a national model worker whose life was held up as an example to all China, but she still ended up dead, wrapped in a garbage bag and dumped in a little-used canal.
This is the first in a series of police procedurals set in a rapidly-changing Shanghain in the 1990s. Chief Inspector Chen Cao has been promoted due to his current role due to the patronage of Party Secretary Li, and his colleague Detective Yu is resentful about this, but they knuckle down to investigating the murder, even when a surprising development leads to political ramifications that could threaten both their careers.
One thing that comes through clearly in the book is how elderly people, finding it hard to make ends meet on their pensions as inflation soars, are taking part-time jobs to earn extra money. There is Commissar Zhang, whose advice Chen has to listen to although Party Secretary Li tacitly makes it clear that does not need to follow it, an old woman selling ices in the street, for some reason still wearing an ancient Best Socialist Mobile Service Woman* armband, Uncle Bao, who runs the telephone kiosk outside Guan's building and provides the clue that leads to a breakthrough in the stagnating case, and Detective Yu's old father, Old Wang, an ex-policeman who patrols the local market and warns Chen when he is straying into dangerously political waters.
A fasinating story due to its setting, but the mystery is not in fact very mysterious at all, and the policemen are not terribly proactive in their investigations.
* euphemism for prostitute
