Chinese police procedural thriller!
Wild Prey ( Inspector Lu Fei #2) by Brian Klingborg
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Klingborg has taken up various themes and run with them through this continuation into the exploits of the very unusual Deputy Chief Inspector Lu Fei a police officer with the Public Security Bureau, in the township of Raven, Heilongjiang Province in Northern China. When we first see Lu he’s staking out a local market looking for a fugitive involved in the black market trade of exotic animal products that will be made into medicinal remedies. What with the increasing pressure from international conservationists and in the wake of the ravages of coronavirus, the Peoples Republic of China is serious about stamping out this centuries old trade.
Meanwhile a young girl, Tan Meirong, haunts the Raven police station (the paichusuo) insisting someone find her older missing sister, Meixiang.
It turns out Meixiang was working for a restaurant that sold illicit bushmeat’s for those men needing the vigor of viagara but using the traditional, illegal methods. There’s a little more going on in this restaurant than this though.
Lu ends up going undercover into Burma (Myanmar) to source the operational headquarters of these outlawed products. What he finds is more than he’d bargained for. What he faces is dangerous in the extreme, as is the very unusual person in charge of the operation. All this is part of endeavouring to find out the fate of Miexiang. Lu’s overriding concern is for her.
Along the way were given an insight into the lives of the general populace in the PRC, the hidden face of who is entitled to medical benefits, the fate of unemployed young country women seeking to become more financially independent who often end up working as prostitutes or in sweat shop factories.
Lu’s personal life has him still endeavoring to build his relationship with the delightful Lou Yanyan owner of the tiny bar, the Red Lotus. I love their interactions.
The pandemic flows along underneath, not focused on, just a part of life today.
Lu’s determination to do the right thing is part of the endearment of who he is. That conviction leads him into dangerous situations that had me on the edge of my seat exclaiming, “Now What?”
An enthralling and clever novel, with a lovely underlying wit, that speaks into the today of this area of the world.
More than ever Lu is up there with my favorite Chinese detectives.
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