Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau faces a difficult choice. For the first time he is in charge of a homicide investigation. The victim, National Model Worker Guan Hongying, anointed as a role model by the Party, is a celebrity of utmost probity. But perhaps her personal life was not so pristine? Chen, a published poet and T.S. Eliot translator who has been assigned to head the Shanghai Police Bureau's Special Case Squad, is urged by his superiors to consider the political implications. Commissar Zhang, an old bureaucrat, doesn't want him to peer under any stones. Does he dare to continue his investigation?Contemporary China is a society in turmoil. Faithful old party members, forced to retire, have lost prestige and perquisites; the new capitalists are on the rise. Ensconced on top of the ladder are the High Cadres and, even above them, the HCC - High Cadre Children - their privileged status analogous to that of medieval princes. Chen is romantically interested in a newspaperwoman whose background would damage his prospects. He relinquished his former Beijing girlfriend as soon as he learned that she was the daughter of a Politburo member, thus far above his touch. Now, if Guan's murderer is to be punished, Chen must invoke her influence. Read Less