Do you remember the A-Z Book Challenge?

Well, I have finally found a book with an author for the letter Q in my A-Z Book Challenge.  I know that it is well past the year in which I was doing the challenge but I plan to finish the alphabet.  Better late than never.  There may be some discussion as to whether this is a Q author or perhaps an X author.  I am going by where I found it in the library and it was shelved under the letter Q.

Another crime fiction book.  You will have gathered by now that my favourite genre is crime fiction.

This crime fiction novel was a little different in that there were frequent pieces of poetry interspersed in the story.  Chen, the protagonist,  is a poet as well as an investigator and translator and he quotes poets from the past. The cities referred to in the title are Shanghai and Los Angeles.

This detective story is different to my usual in that it is set in modern China but gives insight into the culture of ancient China as well as modern.  There is also a great deal of description of the food of the country and at times my mouth was watering with the descriptions of the food being served.

From the book jacket:

Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau is summoned by an official of the Party to lead a highly charged corruption investigation.  The tentacles have spread through the police force, the civil service, the vice trade and deep into the criminal underworld.

The principal figure and his family have long since fled to the United States , beyond the reach of the Chinese government.  But the network is still intact and it is only a matter of time before it becomes stronger than before.  Chen is charged – and it is a job he cannot refuse – with uncovering those responsible , and destroying the organisation from the top down to its roots.

In a twisting case that reunites him with his counterpart from the US Marshals service – Inspector Catherine Rohn – Chen must find a measure of justice in a corrupt, expedient world.

This is the fourth in the critically acclaimed Inspector Chen series set in contemporary China.

I seem to have had the habit lately of reading books that are in the latter part of a series without having read the initial books.  It certainly didn’t detract from the reading of this novel.  I enjoyed it.