A review by readbooks10
A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong

4.0

This is the second book in a terrific series featuring Chief Inspector Chen of the Shanghai police. A body is found in Bund Park, but Chen is asked to focus instead on entertaining and serving as translator for a visiting female U.S. marshal. The marshal is in China to accompany the wife of a witness to human trafficking to the States and into the witness protection program. The problem is that the wife has gone missing. Chen has to juggle his investigations with toeing the party line as a loyal comrade in this book set during the early 1990s following the Tiananmen Square massacre when China was beginning to open up its markets. Chen is a very interesting character, who also writes poetry. He needs to mount a shadow investigation with just a few hand-picked people he can trust when he is told not to try too hard to solve the cases. I find the information about the daily life of the period fascinating - the poverty, the food. I look forward to reading the next book in this intelligent series.