Chief Inspector Chen has to deal with two cases at the same time. First, a body is found in a park with 18 axe wounds, and then he has to try to find a woman who has disappeared. The woman is the wife of a witness to a human-snuggling traffic, imprisoned in the USA. So, on top of all of this, Chen has to deal with a U.S. Marshall, Catherine Rohn, who has come to fetch the woman. Juggling between Chinese politics, being a good cop and dealing with the sentimental tension between him and Catherine, Chen has a lot on his plate. Full of Confucian references, Chinese history and Chinese food, a very enjoyed reading.
“- Can you explain a Chinese proverb for me, Chief Inspector Chen – Mogao yice, daogao yizhang?”
” – The literal translation is this : The devil is ten inches tall, and the way, or justice, is a hundred inches tall. In other words, powerful as evil is, justice will prevail. The original proverb actually read the other way around. The ancient Chinese sage had been more pessimistic about the power of the evil.”