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A review by maplessence
Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong
4.0
4.5★
Beautiful writing, especially at the start. I haven't read the previous books in the series (hoping to remedy that soon!) but the reader is aware because of problems in a previous case, Chief Inspector Chen is both trying to keep a low profile & improve his qualifications by taking a literature paper. But a young girl of blameless character is found dead attired only in an old fashioned scarlet mandarin dress. More deaths follow & the Chief Inspector is pulled into the case.
The reader learns a lot about the new China (where corruption is rampant) Chinese poetry, attire & above all, food is most elegantly described. The food becomes crueller (live monkey brains anyone???) as we move into the killer's world & some of the descriptions were too much for me.
I also felt the denouement went on a bit long, but Qiu Xialong is a detective writer of extraordinary talent & I yearn to read more of his books.
Beautiful writing, especially at the start. I haven't read the previous books in the series (hoping to remedy that soon!) but the reader is aware because of problems in a previous case, Chief Inspector Chen is both trying to keep a low profile & improve his qualifications by taking a literature paper. But a young girl of blameless character is found dead attired only in an old fashioned scarlet mandarin dress. More deaths follow & the Chief Inspector is pulled into the case.
The reader learns a lot about the new China (where corruption is rampant) Chinese poetry, attire & above all, food is most elegantly described. The food becomes crueller (live monkey brains anyone???) as we move into the killer's world & some of the descriptions were too much for me.
I also felt the denouement went on a bit long, but Qiu Xialong is a detective writer of extraordinary talent & I yearn to read more of his books.