Death of a Red Heroine

Death of a Red Heroine is a mystery novel by the Chinese-American writer Qiu Xiaolong, published in English in 2000 as the first installment in his Inspector Chen Cao series. Set in Shanghai in the early 1990s, the novel follows police detective Chen Cao's investigation into the murder of a young woman publicly celebrated as a model socialist worker, an inquiry that draws out tensions between official Communist Party ideology and the capitalist currents remaking Chinese urban life after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. The novel won the 2001 Anthony Award for best first novel and was nominated for an Edgar Award, and it helped establish Qiu's Inspector Chen series, written in English for an international readership, as a distinctive body of contemporary Chinese-set detective fiction.