Set in modern China, West's mystery parallels the solution of a crime with the struggle of political loyalties in the mind of dedicated Beijing police detective Wang Anzhuang. Wang was a loyal party member, but his faith was shaken by the brutality of Tianamen Square. Now when a murder points to Triad mob treachery leading to the Party, Wang must confront his faith once again, reconciling loyalty with duty, while fighting for his reputation, and his life.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
One reason we read mysteries is because they provide an easy way into exotic lives, times, and places. There have been a few good crime stories set in contemporary China (Flower Net, Playing for Thrills), but Christopher West's first book about Inspector Wang Anzhuang of the Beijing Central Investigations Department is unique in its straightforward attention to the details of everyday life and police work. In just a few words, we find out how deeply Wang feels about his country's culture ("The on-stage action subsided," West writes about an opera performance. "An ingenue began to sing, alone except for an erhu, a two-stringed violin that had been played in Wang's home province of Shandong for thousands of years. The inspector felt his heart wrench: the scraping fiddle and the lilting, lovelorn voice created a feeling of exquisite melancholy.") A few pages later, Wang's spirits sag as he's called upon to fill out yet another official form of self-criticism about his thoughts following the Tiananmen Square massacre. Moments like these focus and humanize a complicated story about the murder of a "blue lantern"--as new recruits to a criminal Triad lodge are called--and the continuing thefts of cultural artifacts from an archeological site. Another fine moment: as Wang visits a Triad leader, the man's daughter sings in another room. "Oh, I believe in yesterday... The gangster shook his head. There was a look of genuine sadness in his eyes. 'I wish she'd sing something a bit more cheerful.' And Chinese, Wang thought." --Dick Adler
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
could not put it down,
By A Customer
This review is from: Death of a Blue Lantern (Paperback)
this book is so good I did not want to put it down. It was a chinese version of gorky park.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspector Wang is a must read!,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Death of a Blue Lantern (Paperback)
Christopher West has written a gem of a series with Inspector Wang in China! Death of a Blue Lantern is a wonderful read and a review of recent history to boot. The characters are all well drawn...Wang is always in turmoil but a fellow you'd like to meet...not since VanDerWettering have I liked a policeman more! And you will want to see more of his colleagues in the police and his relatives too. Do yourself a real favor and read the whole series first to last...but good luck finding these books. Can we convince the publishers to reissue the full series so we don't have to hunt them down? As best I can determine that is: Death of a Blue Lantern, Death on Black Dragon River, Death of a red mandarin, and The Third Messiah.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating Police Procedural in Modern Communist China,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Death of a Blue Lantern (Paperback)
I am always interested in reading novels set in a place I want to visit. That is what I got in Death of a Blue Lantern plus a lot more. In addition to the plot being set in Beijing, some action occurs in Canton, Shanghai and in the mountains in northern China.The hero of this novel is Inspector Wang Anzhuang of the Beijing Central Investigations Division. While spending an evening at the opera, Wang finds a dead body in the theater and launches into a complex investigation of the murder, Chinese Triad mob and thefts of precious artifacts. As the investigation unfolds, we see the influence of the communist party on the police department including a mandatory "self-criticism" of each individual's thoughts and actions during the 1989 Tiananmen Square revolution/massacre. Wang is very conflicted about his government's decisions to fire weapons and its impact on the student protestors. His own actions are called into question, making him, in turn, question his commitment to the beliefs of his party versus the more open Western culture. The ideology does not get in the way of a good police story and in fact some of the party leaders are suspects in certain crimes. This is an easy read and was a nice follow-up to the Chinese story line in Jeffrey Deaver's Stone Monkey that I recently finished.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
