Paul French : Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong

From ARB (16.12.2007) :

In RED MANDARIN DRESS, QIU XIAOLONG's fifth Inspector Chen novel, he's finally pulled of a brilliant blend of east and west. Not that the first four Inspector Chen novels, all set in 1990s Shanghai, weren't good, but the latest is a consummate blend of the Chinese approach to crime solving and western noir crime fiction -- Raymond Chandler on The Bund. Inspector Chen aficionados already know the poet-detective well and his milieu of 1990s fast changing Shanghai. Chen is a master of balancing the concerns of the Party to keep a lid on things with the shenanigans of the Mr Big Bucks new tycoons, gangsters and corrupt officials as well as the hostesses, whores and the easily duped who become their victims.

In his latest outing Chen is once again in the multi-layered world of the new urban China as dodgy property speculators, rapacious officials and get-rich-quick conmen converge. But this time the answer may lie in the past and while it's OK (in reality and in the book) to cut down a weed that grows too tall every now and again, however well connected, delving into the Cultural Revolution is a no-no. In the book, as in China today, the horrors, persecutions and vendettas of that period are swept under the carpet -- no South African or Northern Ireland-style truth and reconciliation commissions for China. And, as Qiu suggests, the result of this collective state-sponsored amnesia are festering dreams of vengeance that remain repressed but may just, now and again, boil over into murder.