linguisticali's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
I'm oddly intrigued by this series, I think because of the cultural context - but I don't have a strong emotional connection to the characters and this one had so much psychology/profiling bullshit I just don't have the patience for any more.
claudia_is_reading's review against another edition
4.0
A ritualistic serial killer? Yes, we finally got to that :P
Chen is getting more unsure about his job, and he's considering retaking his academic career when he's handed this case. His partner is getting a bit fed up with all his vacations, tbh, and there is some tension going between them.
As it's usual in these books, there are lots of tidbits about Chinese culture: food, dresses, literature and politics. But this case brings also some reflections on the attitude about mental illness in Mao's China.
Another very good book in this series.
Chen is getting more unsure about his job, and he's considering retaking his academic career when he's handed this case. His partner is getting a bit fed up with all his vacations, tbh, and there is some tension going between them.
As it's usual in these books, there are lots of tidbits about Chinese culture: food, dresses, literature and politics. But this case brings also some reflections on the attitude about mental illness in Mao's China.
Another very good book in this series.
luvina's review against another edition
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
agnes13's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
damppebbles's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn't wait to reach the end of this book. Really not my cup of tea at all. But saying that, I finished it several days ago and it's still playing on my mind. My preference is for twists and turns, a high body count and plenty of gore. This, for me, was the opposite. The main character only got involved in the investigation towards the latter part of the book. The police force were aware of when each murder was going to be committed, so very few twists and turns. Would only recommend if you don't mind a gentle crime story and would like to find out more about Chinese culture.
katenetz's review against another edition
4.0
Written in the 1990s, this Chinese murder mystery is a fascinating read. Besides the plot (which is pretty good), it is a wealth (a WEALTH, I say) of enthralling tidbits about Chinese culture, dress, poetry, food, literature, psychology, and politics/economics. [It was a great counterpart to Wild Swans actually, because it chronologically picks up right where that book lets off.] The main character is both a brilliant detective and a soon-to-be student of Chinese literature, so he simultaneously is hunting down a serial killer and writing a paper on literary deconstruction in ancient romantic Chinese stories. Love it! The side characters are great, especially Chen's partner, Yu and his wife Peiqin. Despite the slightly stilted and overly straightforward English (which happens when translating from Chinese), this book is a winner. I've never learned so much from a murder mystery before.
This is a middle book from a series, but it was easy to jump in. Heading for the rest of the books now!
This is a middle book from a series, but it was easy to jump in. Heading for the rest of the books now!
braynard's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Sexual assault
Multiple descriptions of dead bodies. Repeated mentions of sexual assault and coercion. Lots of references to the Cultural Revolution, so be prepared for that.viscontic's review
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
left_coast_justin's review against another edition
2.0
I remember sitting in my grandmother's living room when I was about nine years old after ice-skating practice, waiting for my dad to come pick me up. (My grandma lived just a couple of blocks from the skating rink). She was a subscriber to Reader's Digest, and sometimes to pass the time -- I was a bookworm even back then -- I would hoist one off her shelf and begin reading.
Those of you familiar with the magazine may remember small inter-article sections with names like 'Life in These United States,' where short articles of a couple of paragraphs, deemed interesting or amusing, would fill the space between the main articles.
One of these little anecdotes is clearly burned in my memory, and went approximately as follows: "The Ladies Gardening Club of Pine Knoll, New Jersey recently rated several sports, including football, basketball and running, according to their level of difficulty. They considered strength, flexibility, endurance, decision making, balance and explosiveness. The most difficult sport? Ballet."
Even at age nine, my bullshit detector was screamin'. This was a clear case of data being constructed backwards in order to justify a conclusion made in advance, and as a crusader against bad data and bad interpretation of same, I just wasn't buying it. This experience came back to me as I read my first Inspector Chen mystery, "Red Mandarin Dress." I hoped it would be, if nothing else, an interesting cross-cultural study with a nice plot to move things along. In both respects, I was disappointed.
I'm hoping that this was not representative of the rest of the series, and am going to go back and find the first book to see if it's better.
The premise here seems to be that crime busters are best able to do their jobs by spending their free time studying literature theory. I'll admit that literature theory isn't something I have much experience with, or interest in, but when someone like David Foster Wallace writes about it, I want to learn more. This book made it seem like a waste of time. As evidence, I cite one example from the book: Chen "discovers" that a common theme in literature is that sexually attractive women are often demonized.
Stop the presses!
But it gets worse. He receives praise from a professor for this "original idea" and is encouraged to write papers and a Master's Thesis based on this breakthrough. And you know what else? It helps him solve the mystery!
To quote Wallace, a better writer, "this is so stupid it practically drools."
Aside from that major complaint -- a failed attempt at genre bending -- there's also nothing really compelling in either the story or the presentation. Yeah, like many Chinese works, we read a lot about food, but this is one of the few that didn't make me hungry -- quite the opposite. And after reading the phrase "red mandarin dress" for the thousandth time, I wish he'd switched to the shorter, less intrusive word "qipao," which he did in fact define early in the text. As for the four murdered women, Qui barely felt they merited any description at all.
I'm hoping Qiu was tired and banged this out in a hurry against deadline, and his other books are better. This one's a mess.
And by the way, I have great respect for ballet dancers -- they are incredibly athletic, and can do things with their bodies that I could only dream of -- but anybody that thinks the cardiovascular demands of ballet can be meaningfully compared to boxing, for instance, needs to go spend three minutes hitting a heavy bag and get back to me.
Those of you familiar with the magazine may remember small inter-article sections with names like 'Life in These United States,' where short articles of a couple of paragraphs, deemed interesting or amusing, would fill the space between the main articles.
One of these little anecdotes is clearly burned in my memory, and went approximately as follows: "The Ladies Gardening Club of Pine Knoll, New Jersey recently rated several sports, including football, basketball and running, according to their level of difficulty. They considered strength, flexibility, endurance, decision making, balance and explosiveness. The most difficult sport? Ballet."
Even at age nine, my bullshit detector was screamin'. This was a clear case of data being constructed backwards in order to justify a conclusion made in advance, and as a crusader against bad data and bad interpretation of same, I just wasn't buying it. This experience came back to me as I read my first Inspector Chen mystery, "Red Mandarin Dress." I hoped it would be, if nothing else, an interesting cross-cultural study with a nice plot to move things along. In both respects, I was disappointed.
I'm hoping that this was not representative of the rest of the series, and am going to go back and find the first book to see if it's better.
The premise here seems to be that crime busters are best able to do their jobs by spending their free time studying literature theory. I'll admit that literature theory isn't something I have much experience with, or interest in, but when someone like David Foster Wallace writes about it, I want to learn more. This book made it seem like a waste of time. As evidence, I cite one example from the book: Chen "discovers" that a common theme in literature is that sexually attractive women are often demonized.
Stop the presses!
But it gets worse. He receives praise from a professor for this "original idea" and is encouraged to write papers and a Master's Thesis based on this breakthrough. And you know what else? It helps him solve the mystery!
To quote Wallace, a better writer, "this is so stupid it practically drools."
Aside from that major complaint -- a failed attempt at genre bending -- there's also nothing really compelling in either the story or the presentation. Yeah, like many Chinese works, we read a lot about food, but this is one of the few that didn't make me hungry -- quite the opposite. And after reading the phrase "red mandarin dress" for the thousandth time, I wish he'd switched to the shorter, less intrusive word "qipao," which he did in fact define early in the text. As for the four murdered women, Qui barely felt they merited any description at all.
I'm hoping Qiu was tired and banged this out in a hurry against deadline, and his other books are better. This one's a mess.
And by the way, I have great respect for ballet dancers -- they are incredibly athletic, and can do things with their bodies that I could only dream of -- but anybody that thinks the cardiovascular demands of ballet can be meaningfully compared to boxing, for instance, needs to go spend three minutes hitting a heavy bag and get back to me.