Paper Butterfly

March 23, 2009
Two narratives drive Liang’s absorbing second mystery to feature PI Wang Mei, who once worked for the ministry of public security (after 2008’s The Eye of Jade
): Mei’s search for a missing pop singer, Kaili, and a subplot that begins nine years earlier with the imprisonment of a student, Lin, for participating in the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Mei’s investigation is slowed by the absence of her assistant, Gupin, but as she travels among many Beijing settings, including open-air markets, a big record company’s offices, isolated construction areas and migrant workers’ housing, the city’s astonishing diversity and energy come alive. Fueled by innumerable tidbits about Chinese culture and daily life, the story is refreshingly low on Western-centric references. While the bias is clear, Liang, who left China after taking part in the Tiananmen Square protests, presents the politics with minimal dogma. A twist ending redeems a somewhat thin plot.

May 1, 2009
A high-ranking Beijing cop-turned-PI, Mei Wang ("The Eye of Jade") is hired to find a missing singer. At the same time, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising is released from the prison camp where he has been brutalized for years. Memories of Mei's own traumatic past (her father died in a labor camp) return as she reads the letters found in the young singer's apartment. The author, who spent her childhood in a labor camp and escaped China in 1989 after taking part in the student uprising, uses recent Chinese history as a catalyst for a haunting mystery that leaves readers with an intense sadness. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 1/09.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2009
Beijing's only female private eye follows the trail of a missing pop singer through the hutongs of downscale Dashanzi.

Calling herself an"information consultant" keeps Mei Wang (The Eye of Jade, 2008) on the right side of China's proscription against private detectives. But Peng Datong, CEO of Guanghua Record Company, knows that Mei is the right person to consult when his star performer Kaili disappears after a show at Capital Gymnasium. The perfume, cigarettes and pill bottles on Kaili's dressing table suggest a vain, self-involved diva, but the letters Mei finds from a distant lover—along with a delicate paper butterfly—hint at a more sensitive soul. As Spring Festival approaches and migrant workers flock from Beijing back to the provinces, Mei follows Kaili's trail to Dashanzi, where migrants live in abandoned factories. In nearby Tofu Mill Hutong, in the shadow of Drum Tower, overworked police detective Zhao helps her cope with increasing pressure to abandon her mission. Interleaved with Mei's search is the story of young Lin's struggle to find his way back to Beijing after his release from East Wind Lao Gai Camp in distant Gansu, where he spent eight years being purged of anti-revolutionary speech. As she struggles with her guilt at failing to support her fellow students at Tiananmen Square, Mei becomes convinced that justice will come only to those willing to fight for it.

Fusing a strong sense of place with concern for issues that span the globe, Liang makes Mei Wang's Beijing at once exotic and familiar.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2009
Liangs second Mei Wang mystery (following The Eye of Jade, 2008) is a significant improvement, presenting a solid and compelling mystery and a fully realized protagonist. Mei Wang, a private detective in late 1990s Beijing who works under the radar after being forced out of a government job, is hired to search for a missing singer. Meis search is interspersed with the story of Liu, a recently released prisoner making his way back to Beijing. As in Qiu Xiaolongs Inspector Chen novels (The Mao Case, 2009), Chinas Communist past is always near the surface here, and Liang shows how it affects contemporary events. This time the focus is on the student revolt that led to Tiananmen Square. As Mei learns of the effects that tragedy had on the missing singer, she contemplates her own actions in 1989. The skillfull storytellingLiang effectively juggles the dual narrativesand the strong sense of place combine to create a tense and compelling private-eye mystery. Meis gentle but fiercely independent nature may remind readers of Jacqueline Winspears Maisie Dobbs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)