By Dennis Fischman

One of the great things about reading a mystery that’s set in a different time and place is that it makes you learn, in an enjoyable way, what’s normal and expected then and there. Without knowing that, you wouldn’t be able to see what was out of place, and a clue! That is one of the pleasures of Enigma of China, by Qiu Xiaolong.

Qiu’s Inspector Chen Cao series began being published way back in 2000, long after the Mao era and even after the death of Chairman Deng Xiaoping, but it is set in the 1990’s, in a China that was still struggling to figure out its economic and political direction. That same struggle is reflected in the life of our hero. He’s a gifted poet, but he becomes a policeman out of duty and a sense of justice. Those two qualities sometimes conflict.

“Enigma of China” by Qiu Xiaolong.
Minotaur Press, 2013.

For instance, in the first book of the series, Death of a Red Heroine, Inspector Chen is assigned to investigate the case of a young woman who has been held up as a national example of a model worker and good Communist Party member. She turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. For his superiors, it is highly desirable that her death be ruled a suicide. For Chen, his conscience will not allow him to turn away from the truth. It’s a balancing act he has to pull off for the course of his career.

In Enigma of China, the eighth book in the long-running series, Chen’s investigative successes and his diplomatic skills have made him a rising cadre in the party. in line to take over the top political position in the police department, while being respected by his colleagues as well. But once again, he is being pressured to declare a death a suicide. He has his doubts.

Yes, the dead man had a dramatic fall from grace. The son of a leading Party member and the head of the Shanghai Housing Development Committee, Zhou Keng, died after his corrupt business dealings were publicly revealed on the Internet, no less! That might have been a reason for him to kill himself, true. But did he?

I think it was somehow fated that I read #9 before coming back to this one, because this really should be the end of the series. It’s a summation of what’s come before: Chen’s devotion to being an honest cop with the Confucian virtues increasingly conflicting with the demands of being a Party man. In this book, someone he respects gets killed because of his dogged detective work, and Chen seems to take some refuge from his moral dilemmas in poetry, fine food, and flirtation. Ultimately, however, he keeps the woman he’s beginning to have feelings for, safe. It is his own career and life he puts on the line.
This is one of the best books in the series, and if it’s the last one I ever read, I will be content. But I recommend you start from the beginning. There are a dozen trips to China in store for you.