Qiu Xiaolong's Anthony Award-winning debut introduces Inspector Chen
of the Shanghai Police.
A young "national model worker," renowned for her adherence to the
principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As
Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to
trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the
very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must
tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this
crime, and risk his career--perhaps even his life--to see justice done.