[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]

DEATH OF A BLUE LANTERN by Christopher West Berkley, August 1998 196 pages $5.99 ISBN: 042516408X Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This first novel is an interesting effort. Short--the number of pages includes a list of characters and a glossary--it is an engrossing look at mainland China and many of the realities of its modern culture, although it should not be viewed as a universal statement on the state of China. A country as vast as China is, has a huge range of ideas, opinions and reactions to, for one example, the confrontations in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in Beijing in 1989. Some of the divergent concerns are reflected in this novel which is an enthralling look into the realities of everyday existence inside Chinese life, including the inevitable corruption and manipulation of political, cultural, personal and social organizations. Which is not to suggest that China is an entirely corrupt wasteland. On the contrary, the novel introduces the reader to a number of excellent examples of officials and ordinary citizens who go about their lives doing the right thing.

One such is protagonist, Beijing police detective Wang Anzhuang. Divorced, Wang struggles against corruption and demeaning bureaucracy within the police department while trying to do his job in the best traditions of any police force, anywhere in the world. The parallels are many and add interest to the novel.

Wang finds himself locked in a struggle to find the killer of a man who apparently belonged to a vast, corrupt, and politically powerful, Triad mob. The story takes the reader through a large number of Chinese enterprises, and becomes almost as complex as China appears to be in most Western eyes. And if he prevails in the end, his small victory is not without its personal price.

Death of A Blue Lantern is an interesting novel which could have used much more careful copy editing.

The reviewer is author or

INNER PASSAGES and

A SUPERIOR MYSTERY

http://www.Minnesotacrimewave.org

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, December 2002

[ Top ]

QUICK SEARCH:

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)

[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]