Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2021
240 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Inspector Chen is excluded from a poetry case as he awaits possible disciplinary action, leaving him to reflect on his career...but does his past hold a clue to the poetry case?
After a number of grueling cases, Chief Inspector Chen is facing mounting pressure from his superiors, many of whom are concerned with where his loyalties lie. What's more, he is excluded from an investigation into an incendiary poem posted on an online forum.
Wracked with self-doubt and facing an anxious wait to discover the fate of his career, Chen is left to reflect on the events that have led to where he is now - from his amateur investigations as a child during the Cultural Revolution, to his very first case on the Shanghai Police Force.
Has fighting for the Chinese people and the morals he believes in put him in conflict with the Party? Why is he being kept away from the new case? As well as his career, is his life now also at risk?
"[S]uperior...While series fans will be delighted at the background Qiu provides, this is an accessible starting point for newcomers interested in a dogged, honest cop who must battle his own government to do his job." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Series fans will be rewarded by another elegant mix of recent history and literary embellishments and a richer Chen backstory, though newcomers may be impatient...Qiu's stylish hybrid is half fictional literary memoir and half crisp whodunit." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Becoming Inspector Chen was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai, China. He published prize-winning poetry, translation and criticism in Chinese in the eighties, and became a member of the Chinese Writers' Association. In 1988, he came to the United States as a Ford Foundation Fellow, started writing in English, and obtained a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Washington University. He is the author of Death of a Red Heroine (2000), A Loyal Character Dancer (2002), When Red Is Black (2004), A Case of Two Cities (2006), Red Mandarin Dress (2007), The Mao Case (2009), Don't Cry, Tai Lake (2012), Enigma of China (2013), Shanghai Redemption (2015), and Becoming Inspector Chen (in French and Italian, 2016 and 2017) in the critically acclaimed, award-winning Inspector Chen series; a collection of linked stories Years of Red ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Xiaolong Qiu's Website
Name Pronunciation
Xiaolong Qiu: chew shao-long (shao rhymes with how)
Pieces of Blue
by Holly Goldberg Sloan
A hilarious and heartfelt novel for fans of Maria Semple and Emma Straub.
30 Copies to Give Away!
A funny and poignant debut novel that skewers billionaire-funded space travel in a love story of interplanetary proportions.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
