WHEN RED IS BLACK

Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau is taking some time off because he has been made an offer he can`t refuse by a triad-connected businessman. For what seems to be a fortune - with no apparent strings attached - he has been asked to translate into English a business proposal for the construction in central Shanghai of a complex to be called the New World. It will consist of shops, restaurants and residential buildings that will evoke nostalgia for the `glitter and glamour` of the thirties. At first, Chen can hardly believe that such a thing can be erected in Communist China, but he comes to understand that this is exactly what the new middle class wants. When the murder of a woman is reported to the police while his boss is on vacation, Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. The victim, Yin, a college teacher and novelist, has been found dead in her tiny, humble room off the stairwell of a converted multi-family house. It seems that only a neighbour could have committed the crime, for the house is kept locked at night. But there seems to be no motive. Only when Inspector Chen returns to police work is the culprit identified and apprehended. And then Chen disovers how the triad has played him and how he in turn can play the system.