Crisis of conscience
There isn’t a community, hamlet or metropolis that doesn’t have crime. And anywhere there is crime there are police. And where there are police, there are people to write about them, journalists and novelists. They tend to portray the police as more efficient than they are, to make the reader feel more safe.
Not all the police, just one who outshines his colleagues in insight and intelligence. Higher than a sergeant, lower than a superintendent. Often an inspector or chief inspector lieutenant is acceptable, with promotions to follow. Detectives — they don’t always go by the homicide book, to the consternation of their superiors.
Though distinguished by their literary creators as single, family men, smokers, drinkers, ham-fisted, cerebral, musically inclined, they are intrepid in taking down the perpetrators. The trouble in communist societies is that they have the Party machine to answer to.
It must be made to seem that they get any and all credit and none of the blame. It’s a political sin to publicly resolve a case otherwise. In Shanghai Redemption by Qiu Hiaolong, Shanghai Police Chief Inspector Chen, a deputy Communist Party cadre, has a conflict of conscience.
An American businessman has been murdered and Chen’s investigation points to illegal dealings in the government. Possibly as a result of his probing, the city’s chief of commerce is then murdered. Effectively prevented from uncovering more, Chen is kicked upstairs.
In his promotion, Chen deals with paperwork. He can’t turn down his new job but can’t walk away from the cases no longer his. He decides to carry on with them, aware that the solution will reflect poorly on the Party. But he feels that as an honest policeman he can do no other.
Shanghai-born and educated, the author went to the US on a fellowship following the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations in 1989, and settled down as an American. His China-set crime thrillers bring out the greed and corruption prevalent in the communist regime.
Each chapter describes an age-old custom still practised, and includes wise sayings and lines of classical poetry. As for young women looking for work, a good many have a hard time of it.