Crime Fiction from China

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Tess Gerritsen (2011) The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel.

Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles struggle to solve the murder of a red haired woman dressed all in black. The victim was found on a roof top with a severed hand. Bone-chilling!

Eliot Pattison (2001) The Skull Mantra. (Inspector Shan Tao Yun)

Disgraced Beijing police inspector, Shan Tao Yun, investigates the killing of a local official, while suffering political punishment as a laborer on a road crew called the People's 404th Construction Brigade high in the Himalayas. A top-notch thriller and a substantive look at Tibet under siege.

Henning Mankell (2010) The Man from Beijing. [Audio Book]

Mankell's latest thriller is a bit too preachy. His portrait of conflicts among Beijing's power elite is naive, but the story is complex enough to keep you interested.

Robert van Gulik (2007) The Chinese Maze Murders: A Judge Dee Mystery. (First published in 1957)

Legal thriller from 7th century China. The plot is based on real crime-detecting judge Ti Jen-chieh (630-700 AD). Fairly accurate rendering of traditional Chinese court proceedings with a colorful portrait of social and cultural conditions ancient China. One of the best books in the Judge Dee Mystery series.

Robert Ludlum (1987) The Bourne Supremacy.

In the second episode of Ludlum's Jason Bourne trilogy, David Webb, is struggling with the aid of a psychiatrist to recover from amnesia. Webb, one-time secret U.S. agent, is persuaded to re-assume his Bourne identity to hunt down an assassin, who is killing highly-placed officials in Kowloon and Hong Kong.

Eliot Pattison (2002) Water Touching Stone. (Inspector Shan Tao Yun)

Shan Tao Yun, a former high-ranking, but disgraced, police investigator from Beijing, roams across the wastes of northern Tibet in a virtually endless and dangerous search for the killer of a teacher and several orphaned boys. A reverence for the beleaguered people of Tibet.

Paul Adam (2004) Flash Point.

In the Himalayas of Tibet, journalist Maggie Walsh joins the search for the baby in whom a new Dalai Lama has been reincarnated. What follows is a cat and mouse chase between the Chinese Public Security Bureau and the group of Buddhist monks. Nelson DeMille calls the book "fast-paced and refreshingly original".

John Burdett (1997) The Last Six Million Seconds: A Thriller.

In this fast action-packed thriller Hong Kong Chief Inspector Chan Siukai investigates a triple murder among American gangsters and Chinese warlords - with the transition of sovereignty from Great Britain to the PRC only 6 million seconds away. Violent.

Jonathan Gash (2006) The Year of the Woman.

Young woman in Hong Kong is threatened by Triad leader, but manages to get away unharmed. Hillariously funny but also touching.

Dorothy Gilman (1985) Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station.

Suburban grandmother, Mrs. Pollifax, working for the CIA in communist China. The sweet little lady rescues a prisoner from a labor camp. If you like strange stories - this is for you!

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