Book two in the Chief Inspector Chen Cao mystery series set in Shanghai. This one starts with a body found in Bund Park. But before Chen had really get started on investigating this murder, he’s tasked with a politically sensitive assignment. A U.S. Marshall, Catherine Rohn, is on her way to China to collect an important witness who has now disappeared. Chen must show Rohn a “modern China” and also find the missing woman.

I like this series. Chen is a complicated man. Educated and a poet, he walks the tightrope between political correctness and professional police duty. Like a master of chess, he is always thinking several steps ahead. While Xiaolong gives the reader the same view of clues as Chen has, the reader is not always privy to Chen’s thinking about what he has observed.

This makes for a more slow-moving work than is typical for mysteries. But I didn’t mind that so much. I’ve been to Shanghai and other cities in China, and I appreciated the time spent on the history of this complex culture.

I really like Chen’s “apprentice,” Detective Yu, as well as Yu’s father “Old Hunter,” and hope they’ll continue to make appearances in future installments. ( )

Esta novela retoma las andanzas protagonizadas por el Inspector Chen en su anterior gran éxito, Muerte de una heroína roja. En esta ocasión, Chen ha de investigar la misteriosa desaparición de la bailarina Wen Liping durante su regreso a China desde Estados Unidos. La vigorosa trama policial propicia la radiografía de un país en plena mutación, sirviéndose de un personaje que está ya en las antologías del género: un amante de la literatura que resuelve intrincados enigmas en tanto recita proverbios de Confucio y moderna poesía china.

A complex story, ends with melancholy. ( )

The second book in the Inspector Chen series follows a few months after the first and finds the detective taking on the case of a gang-related murder in his favorite park and also a case of a missing woman, who is wanted by the American government as part of a plea bargain for her husband's testimony against a human trafficking trial in the states. Chen must work alongside an US Marshal and his initial frustration at the need to be her glorified tourist guide turns to something else as they begin to become friends, and possibly more than friends.
I thought the pacing in this one was a little slower than in the first book and at the same time I had trouble keeping the various details of the story sorted out in my head. Still, I like Inspector Chen and may eventually continue with the series. ( )

This is the second in Xiaolong's Detective Chen series, and you can see the difference--this second installment is much more balanced, so that the few things which got on my nerves in the first book, much as I loved it, have been dialed back in favor of a more involved mystery. It also builds on the characters, of course, in a way that makes me thinks it is a good idea to read this series in order more than might be necessary with some mystery/suspense series built around a detective. It did get more complicated than the first, to the extent that I almost wanted it to be a bit simpler, but I have a feeling that had more to do with my own distractions this week, and less to do with the book itself. All in all, I'm excited to read the next in the series, and wouldn't certainly recommend these books. ( )