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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid Sino-Sequel, February 10, 2003
The second book in the Inspector Chen series is equal in many ways to outstanding predecessor, Death of a Red Heroine. Once again, the reader is drawn into an excellent mix of detective procedural and portrait of China in economic and social transition during the early '90s. Shanghai-based Inspector Chen is assigned to baby-sit a U.S. Marshal who has been sent to collect the wife of the key witness in a federal case against the smuggling of illegal immigrants into America. However, when the pregnant woman disappears without a trace, Chen, Detective Yu, and Marshal Catherine Rohn have only a week to track her down before the trial starts-and without his wife, the witness won't cooperate. At the same time, Chen insists on investigating the bloody murder of an unidentified man in Chen's favorite park (echoes of, or homage to, Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park). Since Chen and Yu's histories were established in the first book, there is much less of their personal lives in this volume, which is a bit of a shame. There is also somewhat less about politics and the Party's influence on private life in this book. Instead the hidden hand of the triad gangs menaces Chen and his investigation, with unclear motives and unclear allegiances. In addition, the history and impact of the Cultural Revolution (a subject at the heart of the recent novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress) becomes more directly relevant to the plot. Another main element is the proliferation of a "gray market" economy, where bribery and corruption are nibbling away at the Communist system. Distasteful as it is, Chen must involve himself with unsavory elements with no solid political backing in order to pursue his investigation, and indeed, possible leaks within his own department. This sequel is quite good to be sure, however there is a running flaw which undermines it somewhat. The brilliance of the first book was in its complete immersion in time and place, by introducing an American outsider as a main character in this story, the author cheapens the experience somewhat. It instantly moves into the realm of "unlikely partners battling crime", which we have seen time and again in fiction and film. This is exacerbated by the rather stilted romantic tension between Chen and the American woman which always seemed rather forced to me. It's also unfortunate that near the end there is a plot contrivance whereby Chen makes an absolutely incredible blunder-it's such an unlikely mistake I had to stop and reread the passage three times to verify that I had understood it properly. Still, there are running mouthwatering descriptions of food, plenty couplets of classic Chinese poetry, and an exciting climax to finish things off. It's well worth reading, both as a crime novel and as a picture of China a decade ago.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shanghai: It's a changed world, February 1, 2004
This review is from: Loyal Character Dancer (Paperback)
Ambitious Chief Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police is annoyed at being asked to baby-sit a visiting American detective. As much as he wants to help the US stop the smuggling of Chinese illegals into the US, the favors being done for one of the illegals in return for his testimony against a notorious snakehead leave a sour taste in Chen's mouth. It doesn't help that the wife of the illegal, whom the American inspector is supposed to escort back to the US, has inconveniently disappeared. All this sets the stage for why a Shanghai chief inspector (even one with a degree in English and American literature) is investigating the probably gang-related disappearance of a Chinese lower-middle class woman with a blonde American tagging along (even a member of the US Marshals Service with a degree in sinology.) The situation gives Chen the opportunity to show the American (and us) the best of Chinese cuisine, music, literature and traditions, while exposing her to the everyday lives of the kind of people who populate a criminal investigator's world. Chinese cities are crowded and life in rural China is still harsh for most people. Qiu doesn't evade that reality, while he acknowledges the growing existence of an affluent, sophisticated middle class in cosmopolitan areas like Shanghai. Be warned that the author uses his characters to discuss some hot political issues, such as the Chinese one-child per family policy and US immigration law. He takes care to allow both sides of every issue to be aired, but these are still topics that distress some readers. Qiu is not a `safe' writer. He probes and provokes and touches some tender spots. The spotlight, however, remains on Chief Inspector Chen Cao, a most extraordinary man. He's intelligent, educated, thoughtful and realistic. Working within a bureaucratic organization, dealing on a daily basis with the criminal, vulnerable and damaged, he uses his love of poetry and respect for Chinese tradition to maintain his bonhomie and integrity in a conflicted society in confusing times. In many ways, he represents the best of modern China.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For Both Mystery Fans and Those Wanting a Peek Inside China, November 19, 2002
Book two in the (People's Republic) Inspector Chen saga meets the high expectations aroused by Qui Xiaolong's first, Death of a Red Heroine. A Loyal Character Dancer is just a damn good mystery--a police procedural of the first water, dangling clues like fish-meal dumplings in front of our noses and leading us on a hunt for the wife of a man slated to testify in a crucial people-smuggling case in the U.S. Reading A Loyal Character Dancer offers the exotic land of China in all its complexity, with neither the Revolution nor the Cultural Revolution ever forgotten. We discover a still-thoroughly traditional China entrenched in. but not extinguished by, the peculiarities wrought by Communism--a China where an herbalist works on a Karioke-bar Mr. Big Bucks and from which the influence of the criminal triads has never disappeared.
SoHo Press has made a big success--at least a literary one--by bucking the mainstream insistence that Americans won't read mysteries set in overseas locales unless the protagonist is thoroughly a U.S. type. That theory is just another irksome example of the dumbing down of literature to appeal to the `masses,' but thank goodness for SoHo and books like Death of a Red Heroine and A Loyal Character Dancer. Any mystery lover will understand what author Qui Xiaolong is striving for and achieves in A Loyal Character Dancer. As the now St. Louis-based professor did in his Anthony-winning Death of a Red Heroine, Qui Xiaolong has concocted a superb and classic tale of crime investigation, one with memorable secondary characters and fascinating cultural intrigue. We must thank the author for taking us into a very up-to-date Communist China and presenting us with the full scope of so much that goes on there. The book is a stunning success, intricate and entertaining in the extreme. G. Miki Hayden, author of Pacific Empire--"people whose vibrant existence on the page is never in doubt" NYTimes.
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