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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Still a guilty pleasure to read,
By Bobby D. (Cerritos, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Mandarin Dress: An Inspector Chen Novel (Inspector Chen Novels) (Hardcover)
The Red Mandarin Dress is the fifth book in the Inspector Chen series and Xiaolong returns to the story and plot which made the first in the series such a good read. However, that first book, Death of a Red Heroine is still the best in this series. None of the follow up books equals its sense of time and place and more detailed characterizations. Yet this series of books is a guilty pleasure because of the characters and staging, Shanghai in the 1990s as China transforms itself from communism and Cultural Revolution to a kind of corrupt crony capitalism. In Mandarin Dress Xiaolong seems to make the assumption you have read previous books in the series as he spends no time on character introduction and I suggest you begin by reading each in order. The big failing here again is that Xiaolong spends little time in more fully defining the various characters and letting them grow. This book is almost totally a police procedural novel with a plot (killer) the reader can guess at long before Inspector Chen solves the case. But it has always been the getting there rather than the surprise that makes these books work. Xiaolong is not a great writer as he uses sharp sentences without much nuance to move the case/plot along. Yet Chen is still such an interesting invention, here he takes a vacation to write a masters thesis in literature only to be drawn into catching Shanghai's first serial killer. This series might be an acquired taste but I know I will be picking up the next book with the hope that Chen's partner Yu, Yu's wife Peiqin and Chen's new girl friend White Cloud are more fully developed perhaps with their own story becoming a more important part of the next case for Inspector Chen.
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One busy novel,
By
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This review is from: Red Mandarin Dress: An Inspector Chen Novel (Inspector Chen Novels) (Hardcover)
This is the best of the series so far. It tells an interesting story and mechanically, it is the most effectively written of the Inspector Chen novels. In short: It packs a lot of plot and subplot into a neat little package.
The murder is an interesting crime with roots in the Cultural Revolution, and a sub-plot about Chen working on an MA degree folded neatly into the pursuit of the killer. The regular characters all move forward in their development, and you get a far better picture of Inspector Chen as a man trapped in a career which is is good at, but which doesn't satisfy his soul. A few reviews of the previous books have been critical of the amount of poetry and food conversation - well, here the right balance is struck. And even the rather disturbing "live monkey brain" (or as Chen calls them - cruel dishes) plays into the plot near the end. For me, I'll stick to cashew chicken. The only down side is that the book is read and I probably have another 12 months to wait for the next one!
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A decent mystery, but quite mediocre in most aspects,
By Esam Al-Shareffi "casual but critical reader" (Stony Brook, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Red Mandarin Dress: An Inspector Chen Novel (Inspector Chen Novels) (Hardcover)
I have to take exception with the 5-star reviews that have been posted. To justify my three-star review, let me go over some of the strong and weak points of the novel:
Strong points: -Gives a very nice picture of the city of Shanghai, and more importantly, of the divide between rich and poor, capitalism and socialism, as well as giving the reader an incredibly interesting look at life in China in the late 1990's. -The book is nicely seasoned with numerous descriptions of food, everywhere from a cheap box dinner to a banquet of delicacies, and the use of quotations from Chinese poetry (while at time distracting and seemingly pointless) often adds to the story. -The numerous pressures on Mr. Chen and his colleagues, particularly his handling of political circumstances, and his ability to both investigate crime, deal with his literature paper, and his (possible) dealings with White Cloud are interesting to follow. Weaknesses: -Barely half way through the novel, the suspect becomes obvious and the mystery is essentially resolved. The last third of the book becomes quite boring and essentailly a chore to read. -Mr. Chen's meeting with the suspect is incredibly unrealistic and far too overdone. The calling in of favors, the preparation of "cruel dishes", the use of White Cloud, etc., is all quite unnecessary and far from providing an exciting apex, is actually an exercise in tedium. -Mr. Chen's handling of the case at the end is quite inept and a sharp contrast from his earlier (brilliant) investigation and handling of the case. It was really painful to sit through it. -The conclusion is unsatisfying. While no one expects "sad" or "happy" endings nowadays, the way this case ended was foolish. So, while the novel is interesting, and at a little over 300 pages a quick read (five hours or less,) I was less than impressed, particularly given the numerous five star reviews.
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