Jonathan Mirsky

Sin In Shanghai

When Red is Black

By

Soho Press 320pp £15.99 order from our bookshop

I NEVER READ thrillers unless they’re by Conan Doyle or, nowadays, by Qiu Xiaolong. A Chinese living in America and writing in agreeably quaint English, Qui has created two riveting Shanghai cops, Chief Inspector Chen Cao and his assistant, Detective Yu Guangmng. Chen is not quite as clever as Sherlock Holmes, but Yu is much less toadying than Watson. They have already appeared in Qiu’s two earlier, very good books, Death of a Red Heroine and A Loyal Character Dancer. Just as Sherlock Holmes familiarised us with the London underworld, Chen and Yu take us about the seedier parts of Shanghai and inside the hangouts of the vulgar newly rich, while the two policemen endure the political pressure and corruption hovering around Chinese life.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'One of the reasons for its longevity is that it has virtually nothing to say about science and technology at all,… ,
    • 'The characters in many of these stories are trapped in the obsessive present tense of their own thoughts; in the m… ,
    • 'Libraries, for much of their existence, have embodied in microcosm many of the characteristics of the totalitarian… ,
    • 'Moss and Cynthia buy several properties through which to launder their ill-gotten gains, take lots of drugs, have… ,
    • 'Never mind the imperial cult. This is the cult of Boris. What happened to Rome?' From the LR archive:… ,
    • Thirty-two years ago this month, we published Muriel Spark's short story, 'A Playhouse Called Remarkable' Read it… ,
    • Time travel, bicycles and white horses populate @WomackPhilip's roundup of children's books by @marcussedgwick,… ,
    Follow Us