Bringing 1990s Communist China alive, Qiu's masterful fifth Inspector Chen mystery (after 2006's A Case of Two Cities) finds Shanghai terrorized by its first-ever serial killer. The murderer dresses his victims' corpses in fancy red mandarin dresses before leaving them in public places. Insp. Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department has taken a step back from his professional life to pursue an advanced literature course instead of investigating a politically sensitive corruption case, but now he must return to active duty and help in the manhunt. He learns that the symbolic garb may be connected to the corruption scandal, but not before a young female officer falls prey. The solution may strike some as a little pat, but the first-rate characterizations and elegant portrait of a society attempting to move from rigid Maoist ideologies to an accommodation with capitalism will keep readers engaged and eager for more. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Detective Inspector Chen is trying to lie low after his last case (A Case of Two Cities, 2007) turned even more politically sensitive than he could have anticipated. Questioning his career as a detective in modern Shanghai, Chen takes a leave of absence to study Chinese literature. But he's called back to work when Shanghai's first serial killer starts leaving the bodies of young women clad only in red mandarin dresses across the city. The trail, leading back to the Cultural Revolution and three accompanying girls, opens old wounds in a society torn between its Communist past and its capitalist present. Chen, like many Shanghainese, is trapped in the middle. But not so trapped that he isn't able to enjoy traditional Chinese cooking, from cheap workers' meals of soup buns to exotic (for Western readers) dishes ranging from drunken shrimp to live monkey brains, all described in loving detail. Chen's fans, growing steadily, will find this one on their own, but suggest it as well to all readers who prefer their crime stories in exotic locales with a strong sense of place.--Moyer, Jessica Copyright 2007 Booklist

Early in THE REDBREAST (Harper/HarperCollins, $24.95), an elegant and complex thriller by the Norwegian musician, economist and crime writer Jo Nesbo, an old man who has just received a death sentence from his doctor goes into the palace gardens in Oslo and kills an ancient oak tree. "Yes!" you think. "What a terrible act, but what wonderful symbolism!" And you'll be amazed when, hundreds of pages later, the real reason for the aboricide is revealed, along with the answers to other seemingly minor mysteries (including the significance of the title) that figure in the novel's ingenious design. The engineering of the interlocking plot pieces is intricate because it has to support Nesbo's complicated ideas - and dire thoughts - about Norwegian nationalism, past and present. While giving his ambitious book the form of a police procedural, featuring Harry Hole, an attractive if familiarly flawed loose cannon of a cop, the author expands his street-level subplots into a narrative that reaches all the way back to World War II, when Norway was under German occupation. There's a pattern to the various criminal activities Hole investigates, from the black-market sale of a German semiautomatic hunting rifle ("the ultimate professional murder weapon") to the "fascist nests" of neo-Nazis who can be counted on to disrupt most national holidays. But the pattern doesn't emerge until the detective investigates the present-day lives and past histories of a group of war veterans, among the many Norwegians who volunteered to fight against the Russians on the Eastern front and were later denounced as traitors. Told in flashbacks, the parallel story of their forgotten war begins in a trench in 1942, develops in harrowingly beautiful scenes of harsh wartime suffering and ends in 1945 with mass executions in Oslo. Pristinely translated by Don Bartlett, Nesbo's book eloquently uses its multiple horrors to advance a disturbing argument: suppressing history is an open invitation for history to repeat itself. For sheer likability, no private eye comes close to Sue Grafton's endearing California sleuth, Kinsey Millhone, who has been making friends with readers for more than two decades. Settling into T IS FOR TRESPASS (Marian Wood/Putnam, $26.95), the 20th mystery in an evergreen series, first means making sure that all's right in Kinsey's world. Is it still the 1980s in Santa Teresa? Check. Is she still renting a studio apartment from her octogenarian landlord, Henry - and is Henry still baking bread? Check and check. Now for the kicker: Does she still have her warm heart and wicked sense of humor? Absolutely. Just because Kinsey is adorable doesn't make her a pushover, and the issue she takes up here - criminal negligence and abuse of the elderly - is as serious as it is ugly. Gus Vronsky, a cranky old neighbor, has a bad fall at Christmastime, and his greatniece from New York hires a licensed vocational nurse named Solana Rojas to take care of him, after first hiring Kinsey to check her credentials. But aside from noticing that "there's something creepy about her," Kinsey doesn't know what we do (from chapters told from the caretaker's perspective) - namely that "Solana" stole her identity and has evil plans for Gus. For all its familiar comforts, this is one sad, tough book. Ian Rutledge, the Scotland Yard man in Charles Todd's outstanding series of historical mysteries, has a wonderful capacity for compassion - a quality this shell-shocked (and guilt-ridden) World War I veteran acquired over four hellish years in the battlefields of France. That heightened sensibility comes into play in A PALE HORSE (Morrow, $23.95), when the War Office orders Rutledge to locate an eccentric scientist who has disappeared from his secluded cottage in Berkshire. In penetrating interviews with the scientist's reclusive neighbors, Rutledge comes to realize that they're all emotionally wounded outcasts of society ("lepers, without the sores") and that many of the secrets they're guarding go back to the Great War. Even the huge prehistoric animal carved into the whitechalk cliffs above the cottages reminds one tenant of the cloud of poison gas that passed over Ypres like "a great horse moving across a barren meadow." However they apportion their literary chores, the mother and son who write together as Charles Todd clearly share an affinity for quiet souls haunted by unquiet memories. Runaway capitalism can be held accountable for a multitude of social sins, but can it be blamed for the acts of a serial killer? That's one of the many intriguing questions posed by the poet and translator Qiu Xiaolong in his latest Inspector Chen mystery, RED MANDARIN DRESS (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95). The erudite Shanghai detective (who writes romantic poetry to clear his head) has to postpone his participation in an intensive course in classical Chinese literature when murder victims wearing identical mandarin dresses begin turning up around the city. Are these aberrant crimes somehow linked to modern China's struggle to contain the widespread corruption that accompanies unregulated economic growth? You bet. But the novel also contains pertinent references to the huge ideological upheaval of the Cultural Revolution - a subject that's never far from the surface in this intelligent series - along with many poignant hints that once it's lost, a country's cultural identity can never be restored. Jo Nesbo's thriller takes us back to World War II and the German occupation of his native country.

Shanghai Police Chief Inspector Chen is making one last stab at attaining his graduate degree in literature. However, he is asked to take a look at a case involving financial corruption on a high level. Then there are the murders of young women clad in red mandarin dresses. Whether he is chasing a serial killer or a thieving bureaucrat, Chen is at his best dodging political land mines and solving personal dilemmas. In this fifth entry in an outstanding series (Death of a Red Heroine), author Qiu captures the bustling atmosphere of modern China coming to grips with its Communist roots. Patrons who enjoy mysteries set in today's China, such as those by Peter May, will want this one. The author lives in St. Louis. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A methodical serial killer's method baffles Shanghai police. A morning jogger discovers the corpse of a beautiful young woman in a vintage red Mandarin dress. With Chief Inspector Chen Cao (A Case of Two Cities, 2006, etc.) on a leave of absence to pursue an advanced degree in literary studies, the case falls to his uninspired second-in-command, Det. Yu, who's eager to fly solo and make a favorable impression. Chen's leave doesn't stop an influential member of the Shanghai People's Congress from insisting that Chen investigate a politically sensitive case involving a local housing project. So Chen's literary investigation gets folded in with metropolitan police pursuits and such arcane studies as the sociological and sexual symbolism behind the red Mandarin dress. A second dead girl in identical attire prompts police to look for patterns. This second victim was a "three-accompanying girl" (a prostitute) and the first worked long hours in a hotel to avoid such a fate. Clues lead police to a local dance club, where they set up a sting in which eager young policewoman Hong acts as a decoy. The plan goes so terribly wrong--Hong vanishes and is later found dead in a red Mandarin dress--that Chen puts his studies on hold to unravel the complex psychology of the killer. The author's heady plot highlights his strengths, elegantly capturing China in transition. A fascinating read. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.