August 2009 Book Review– Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
Reviewed by Bryan West
If you’ve been reading News from 510 over the past two years, you know that I enjoy novels set in distant lands. Qiu Xiaolong’s Death of a Red Heroine is no exception. Set in the early 1990s in Shanghai, the reader gets an interesting picture of the struggle of a Communist country adhering to the Party’s demands while attempting to enter the 21st century with capitalism, western influences, and a more pragmatic generation of men and women heavily influenced by the recent events in Tiananmen Square.
What is equally interesting is the main character, Chen Cao, a policeman as well as a translator. Chen has majored in English literature at the university, is fluent in English therefore, and able to supplement his income by translating American mysteries into Chinese. The other personality trait of Chen is his love of Chinese literature from various dynasties in Chinese history as well as being a member of the Writers’ Union and composing his own poem.
As the plot unfolds you find a great combination of the typically astute and intuitive professional policeman investigating a crime while negotiating the political labyrinth of what can and cannot be touched when the Party sees a negative impact to its image. And every so often Chen relates what has happened in the investigation to a particular poem from Chinese literature of the past. The combination makes the novel so much more than the typical detective fiction you’ve read before.
The story itself begins with a “former national model worker’s” body found in a canal outside of Shanghai. We learn that “model worker” is a title given to a person dedicated solely to her job and the Party. Guan Hongying, the victim, was beautiful but lived alone is a poor, one-room dormitory style building for single women. She was a loaner and seemingly focused on her work without a social life. So why was she murdered?
We know that under Communism, China has created a classless society. We also know that such political propaganda is nonsense. In the early 90s Shanghai is rapidly being transformed into a capitalist city on the model of Hong Kong. There are wealthy landowners, corrupt party official, and then the millions of workers living dismal lives by contemporary American standards. Chen lives a more middle class lifestyle in his own apartment, comparatively well off, but a far cry from the mansions of the HCC–High Cadre Children. These men and women (more accurately, boys and girls in light of their behavior) are living the lives of spoiled soap opera characters–fast cars, designer clothes, drugs, alcohol, sex. When the investigation leads to one of the children of the Party elite, the political power trumps the police power. Chen is told to take some time off, drop the investigation. Of course he does not.
Yu Guanming, Chen’s partner, fits the role of foil to Chen nicely. Equally dedicated to his work but far more pragmatic, he brings the reality of the conflict between Party and police work into focus. Yu is married with a wife and son to worry about. While Chen can earn additional money translating English mysteries and occasionally writing his own poetry, Yu, the son of a policeman himself, depends on what he and his wife can earn to put food on the table and pay the rent for a small hovel with an outside kitchen and bathroom. Losing his job is simply not an option.
As the novel moves to its climax, the similarity between Chen and Guan, both people caught in the middle, is obvious. Chen’s former lover/girl friend is herself HCC. While educated, Chen is not of that class. And besides, she’s asking Chen’s help in obtaining a visa to escape to Japan. Guan, in her affair with a sadistic HCC lover saw a chance to escape poverty only to be blackmailed and murdered.
Death of a Red Heroine is far more than a murder/mystery, a “who done it.” And best of all, it’s the first of a series of novels by Qiu Xiaolong with the same two cop characters. I’ve read them all, and they just get better.
