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Reading Rescue, January 2008: Mysteries from the Orient
By Anne Allen and Mary Anne Fulmer
The holidays are over, the Steelers' season has ended (too early),
and now we all have time to work on our New Year's resolutions. The
Reading Rescuers (no boring books here) hope that everyone has resolved
to read more in 2008, and an easy way to do that is by participating in
the library's adult winter reading program. There is an intriguing list
of categories to choose from and we'll spend the next few months
offering suggestions for some of them. "Mysteries with a foreign
setting" is a new option, and this month we'll focus on some
possibilities, mostly new releases, set in Asia.
When we select a mystery, of course, we want a good read, but the
setting can add an extra dimension to the story. The nature of the
crime, the cause of it, and the investigation itself can all be affected
by where the story takes place. S. Z. Rozan typically sets her Lydia
Chin and Bill Smith mysteries in New York City. In Reflecting the Sky,
Chinatown herb shop owner Grandfather Gao hires Lydia to perform a
service for him: accompany the ashes of an old friend to Hong Kong and
deliver a jade bracelet to the dead man's grandson there. It sounds like
an easy job to her, but when Gao adds that he wants to hire her partner Bill
as well, she wonders what problems he foresees. Shortly after Chin and
Smith arrive in Hong Kong, the grandson is kidnapped in a manner that
causes the family to suspect them, and they then are accused of stealing
the bracelet and substituting another. Distrusted by the family they
have come to see, suspicious of the unusual behavior of the kidnappers,
and unsettled by a murder, Bill and Lydia go to work on their own in an
unfamiliar city with very different rules. Rozan uses Hong Kong's
interesting geography and lively atmosphere to good effect in this
novel.
In Qiu Xiaolong's Red Mandarin Dress, Shanghai Police Bureau
Inspector Chen Cao is on temporary leave when a young woman wearing a
bright red dress is found dead. As Chen tries to dodge his superiors,
and a corruption case he has been assigned, more women, wearing
identical dresses are found murdered. Shanghai's past and present
collide, as Chen and his partner Yu come to realize neither case will be
closed until criminal acts dating from the Cultural Revolution are
addressed. Xiaolong paints an expressive portrait of the cruel side of
the Chinese character and of a modern capitalist city struggling to
overcome a past haunted by repression.
Tibet also has experienced harshness from the Chinese government.
Annexed in the 1950s, its people have been turned into a minority group
by the mass relocation of Han Chinese, and their religion has been
banned. The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison takes place in this
unforgiving landscape. Shan Tao Yun had been a police inspector in
Beijing when he offended a superior and was sent to a work camp in a
remote part of Tibet. When a headless corpse is found on one of the
sacred mountains, the men in the work camp refuse to continue work on
building a road. With the district prosecutor away, Shan is removed from
prison and assigned the job of investigating the murder. Buddhist
legends, an American mining operation, and a remote location combine to
make this an enthralling read.
It is the 1970s in South Korea and Military Police officer Jill
Matthewson has disappeared. Investigators George Sueno and Ernie Bascom
are on the case in The Wandering Ghost by Martin Limon. Sent from Seoul
to the demilitarized zone just south of the border with North Korea,
they are met with stonewalling from the Army personnel and resentment
from Koreans sick of the special treatment the GIs receive. Luckily for
the reader, these two don't care how much anarchy they spread, and they
are in fine form dashing around nightclubs, chasing down missing
dancers, and breaking curfew. As their investigation proceeds, it expands
to include a suicide on the army base, the accidental death of a Korean
schoolgirl, and the murder of a talent booker. Sueno and Bascom are
entertaining characters and the South Korean setting is fascinating.
In A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church, we cross the border into
North Korea. Home to one of the most repressive governments in the
world, there are few crimes and little to be gained by solving those
that are committed: someone not worth offending is usually involved.
Inspector O is sent south from Pyongyang with the instructions to "watch
for a car". Given a camera to photograph the license plate, he conceals
himself on a hill and hopes there is nothing to be seen. A Mercedes
appears from the south, honks its horn, and drives on. O realizes there
are no license plates, but even if there were, the camera's batteries are
dead. Unfortunately for him, the case isn't as dead as the batteries, and
he is forced to investigate a car smuggling operation. Add a dead body
in the Koryo Hotel, a power struggle between different government
agencies, and O is on the run, trying to escape with his life. The
author, using a pseudonym, has experience as a foreign intelligence
officer, and this book will remind the reader of John LeCarre's George
Smiley novels.
It's never too early to start bringing your used books, audios, and
videos to the library for the Friends of the Library sale (scheduled for
April). The Adult Winter Reading program is on now, with great prizes.
Top prize is a $100 gasoline card to a local filling station. You'll
receive a raffle ticket just for signing up. As always, you can reach us
at (724) 744-4414 or
mfulmer@pennlib.org.
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