A Loyal Character Dancer by Qui Xiaolong

A Loyal Character Dancer is the second mystery in a series about Shanghai Detective Chen Cao. Detective Chen studied literature in college, but was assigned to the Shanghai police department to work after graduating. He is a loyal party member who frequently experiences problems in maintaining balance between his desire to do a good job (solving crimes) and his need to stay in the good graces of local party bosses. Chen has a group of colleagues and friends he works with in solving his cases.

This case involves a pregnant, missing woman (Wen Liping) who was a talented dancer as a young girl. She was a young girl during the Cultural Revolution, when the only form of public dancing allowed was to dance waving a banner with the symbol for Loyalty on it, in praise of the Red Guard. She was sent to the countryside to live and work as an "educated youth", another program of the cultural revolution. Many former educated youths (including Chen's loyal subordinate Yu and his wife) have since returned to city living and taken on work more suited to their educations, but Wen was stuck in the country, due to her marriage to a brutal man who seems likely to be involved in a Triad crime syndicate.

Wen Liping's husband is important to the story, because he is a potential witness in a human smuggling operation. An American woman (a member of the Marshall service) named Catherine Rohn has been sent to Shanghai to liaise with Chen and escort Wen Liping to America. Wen Liping's husband won't testify until she is with him.

So--Chen is working missing woman case while he acts as a buffer between the American woman and his Party Secretary boss, Li. He is also coordinating the efforts between the two jurisdictions investigating the case. He is also trying to investigate another case--that of a body found in the Bund park. The body is a man who seems to have been killed in a Triad-style execution, so Chen considers the cases to be possibly related.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through this book, so I'll update when I finish.

Here's a link to an interview with Qui Xiaolong
http://books.missouri.org/eviews/may.html
10/20/05