Inspector Chen is excluded from a poetry case as he awaits possible disciplinary action, leaving him to reflect on his career . . . but does his past hold a clue to the poetry case? After a number of grueling cases Chief Inspector Chen is facing mounting pressure from his superiors, many of whom are concerned with where his loyalties lie. What's more, he is excluded from an investigation into an incendiary poem posted on an online forum. Wracked with self-doubt and facing an anxious wait to discover the fate of his career, Chen is left to reflect on the events that have led to where he is now - from his amateur investigations as a child during the Cultural Revolution, to his very first case on the Shanghai Police Force. Has fighting for the Chinese people and the morals he believes in put him in conflict with the Party? Why is he being kept away from the new case? As well as his career, is his life now also at risk?

Chief Inspector Chen, facing possible disciplinary action, is excluded from a new investigation that has seen a poem said to be criticising the current government removed from the Internet. Left fearing for his career he finds himself reflecting on his life growing up during the Cultural Revolution and his previous cases.

Inspector Chen is excluded from a poetry case as he awaits possible disciplinary action, leaving him to reflect on his career . . . but does his past hold a clue to the poetry case?After a number of grueling cases Chief Inspector Chen is facing mounting pressure from his superiors, many of whom are concerned with where his loyalties lie. What's more, he is excluded from an investigation into an incendiary poem posted on an online forum.Wracked with self-doubt and facing an anxious wait to discover the fate of his career, Chen is left to reflect on the events that have led to where he is now - from his amateur investigations as a child during the Cultural Revolution, to his very first case on the Shanghai Police Force.Has fighting for the Chinese people and the morals he believes in put him in conflict with the Party? Why is he being kept away from the new case? As well as his career, is his life now also at risk?

Chen Cao has been removed from his chief inspector role, but that doesn’t stop him investigating a ‘private kitchen’ murder that has similarities to a Judge Dee story. No longer a chief inspector, Chen Cao finds himself as director of the Shanghai Judicial System Reform Office. To outsiders it’s a promotion, but Chen knows he’s being removed from the spotlight as he’s immediately placed on involuntary ‘convalescence leave’ to stop him interfering with any cases. However, with various high-profile crimes making headlines and fears escalating over vigilante reprisals, Chen’s superiors know he must at least appear active. One case revolves around Min Lihau, a mingyuan, who runs a ‘private kitchen’ for powerful figures in Shanghai. Min’s accused of murdering her assistant, yet Chen is struck by its similarities to a historic case involving the famous Judge Dee. When an acquaintance of his is murdered in connection with Min, Chen knows he can’t stand idly by . . . but he must act in secret, under the cover of writing a Judge Dee novel.

Former chief inspector Chen faces a tricky serial murderer case at the height of the Covid pandemic - and risks everything he has to expose the deadly effects of the Chinese Communist Party's so-called zero Covid policy to the world. Over two million copies of the Inspector Chen series sold worldwide The Covid crisis is at its height in China. Ex-chief inspector Chen Cao is horrified by the way the Chinese Communist Party are using the pandemic as an excuse to put the Chinese people under blanket surveillance and by the soaring number of deaths caused not by Covid, but by the CCP's inhuman 'zero Covid' policy. Chen is debating whether to translate the 'Wuhan File' - a diary of life during the Wuhan disaster smuggled to him by a close friend - and expose the CCP's secrets to the world when to his surprise he is summoned by a high-level party cadre to help investigate a series of murders near a local Shanghai hospital. Under pressure from the Party to reach a quick conclusion and help maintain political stability, Chen investigates, aware that he too has been placed under omnipresent, omnipotent surveillance. And as he works, determined to uncover the truth, no matter what, he risks everything by deciding to translate the Wuhan Files. For one thing is true in China: you must be absolutely loyal to the Party. Otherwise, you are considered absolutely disloyal, and the consequences are dark indeed . . .

Two paranormal mysteries in an “exotic amalgam of police procedural, SF, comic fantasy, and horror . . . a delight from start to finish” (Locus). Det. Inspector Wei Chen of Singapore Three’s Thirteenth Precinct is “a detective whose beat reaches to the fringes of Heaven and Hell” (Booklist). Along with his demon partner from Hell’s vice squad, Zhu Irzh, Chen is the man to turn to for paranormal problems that are literally out of this world. The Shadow Pavilion: An assassin is trying to kill the Emperor of Heaven, and Detective Inspector Chen does not have his demonic partner, Zhu Irzh, to fall back on. Irzh has vanished, Chen’s wife is in danger, and a psychotic Bollywood star is on the warpath. Good thing the occult detective is no stranger to chaos—because if he doesn’t restore order quickly, this could be the end of the universe. “[A] clever mix of Chinese folklore and police procedural . . . The plot zips along . . . Williams seamlessly blends the occult with modern issues like feminism and illegal immigration to create a thoroughly original fantasy.” —Publishers Weekly The Iron Khan: No mortal has ever heard of the Book. Few in Heaven even believe it is real. But Mhara, the Emperor of Heaven, knows the Book is very real, very powerful, and very much missing. It has a mind of its own, and it appears to have wandered off—taking the secrets of the universe with it. No ordinary mortal, Detective Inspector Chen has a lot on his plate: His wife is pregnant, his demonic partner is tracking the movement of an immortal horde, and he’s the only one who can retrieve the Book and restore order to the cosmos. Before all Hell breaks loose . . . “Williams continues to expand her unique future Asia, stuffing it with lively characters, chop-socky action, demonic intrigue, amazing magic, and a tasty dash of screwball comedy. This fantasy mystery adventure will delight readers who crave originality and excitement.” —Publishers Weekly

Three paranormal mysteries in an “exotic amalgam of police procedural, SF, comic fantasy, and horror . . . a delight from start to finish” (Locus). Det. Inspector Wei Chen of Singapore Three’s Thirteenth Precinct is “a detective whose beat reaches to the fringes of Heaven and Hell” (Booklist). Along with his demon partner from Hell’s vice squad, Zhu Irzh, Chen is the man to turn to for paranormal problems that are literally out of this world. Snake Agent: This “entertaining supernatural mystery” introduces an occult detective who is as serious as his beat is strange (Publishers Weekly). With a demon for his beloved wife, Det. Inspector Wei Chen possesses a comfort with the supernatural that most mortals cannot match. But his journey to Hell to find the waylaid ghost of Pearl Tang, the deceased daughter of a wealthy industrialist, will take him further into the abyss than ever before—to a mystifying place where he will need the help of a demonic detective to survive. Getting into Hell is easy. Getting out is another story. “Snake Agent combines disparate elements of Chinese mythology, urban fantasy, science fiction and mystery to create a rich milieu and a highly entertaining story.” —Jacqueline Carey, New York Times–bestselling author The Demon and the City: In this “wildly imaginative” second novel, demon Zhu Irzh has been assigned to aid the Singapore Three police department as they investigate cases that overlap this world and the world to come (Publishers Weekly). With Detective Inspector Chen on a well-deserved vacation, Zhu Irzh’s first murder case involves the savage killing of a rich would-be witch outside of the occult market. Soon he’s unearthed a supernatural conspiracy that proves Hell holds no monopoly on evil. Chen just may have to cut his vacation short. “Uniquely imaginative . . . [a] surreal fusion of Chinese mythology, paranormal high jinks, and satisfyingly suspenseful sleuthing.” —Booklist Precious Dragon: Chen and Zhu Irzh have been assigned to escort the Heavenly functionary Mi Li Qi on a diplomatic mission to the underworld. Soon after they check in to their hellish hotel, Qi vanishes into the abyss. Now they must follow her into the bowels of a demonic bureaucracy, where they will be forced to dodge all manner of otherworldly dangers if they wish to avoid a political incident with apocalyptic ramifications. “One of the most colorfully imaginative packages in recent fantasy.” —Booklist

With the 1989 Beijing massacre fading from popular memory in the West, China from the mid-1990s to a few years ago felt more open than ever to global trade, communication, travel, and cultural and educational exchanges. There was even talk in the mainstream press that China was heading toward a more democratic future. It was during this second Sino-Western honeymoon that authors in the US, Canada, France, the UK, and elsewhere began writing mystery fiction set in contemporary China in their regional languages. These “China mysteries”—crime, detective, and mystery thriller novels that take place in China but were not written or published there—formed a new genre of popular fiction that highlighted the world’s hopes and fears after Tiananmen. The multinational and multicultural writers of China mysteries, among them ex-PRC nationals like Qiu Xiaolong, Zhang Xinxin, and Diane Wei Liang, converged on the China Mainland to negotiate political and cultural complexities through crime fiction plotlines. Their books emerged from Western lineages of the modern novel and popular genre fiction—with Chinese contributions—and depended on Western commercial publishing models shaped by cultural, national, political, and economic factors. This work examines more than a hundred China mysteries—many describing and analyzing social and economic changes at the center of modern life in China—to provide a brief history of the genre and analyze the formulaic and original elements of the mysteries, including their attention to matters of location, social content, characterization, history, and biography. It also highlights the role of “information” acquisition as a motivation for readers and authors of popular fiction, which has become a topic of discussion in Chinese literature studies. With its timely commentary on Sino-Western relations as presented through crime fiction, China Mysteries will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary Chinese literature and culture, as well as fans of crime novels and others who are curious about the global dimensions of the genre and how it complicates our understanding of “world literature.”

The legendary Judge Dee Renjie returns, in this lyrical combination of mystery, history and ancient Chinese politics from the author of the renowned Inspector Chen mysteries In Tang dynasty China, Empress Wu - seductive, ambitious and vindictive - rules with an iron fist. Her premier minister, Judge Dee Renjie, is honored to be trusted by her. But when she orders him to carry out an urgent investigation into the disappearance of disgraced poet Luo Binwang, he can't see why the matter is of such vital importance. Luo Binwang joined a doomed uprising against Her Majesty, and vanished after the final, bloody battle. Is he missing - or dead? Either way, now that the rebellion has been mercilessly quashed, what harm could a poor, elderly poet do? Traveling out of the great capital of Chang'an, accompanied by his loyal manservant Yang, Judge Dee launches a painstaking investigation, in the hopes of achieving what the empress' secret police could not. But the journey is marred by ill omens, and with death and disaster following his every step, Judge Dee soon begins to wonder if the empress trusts him as much as he thought . . . This powerful mystery, set in ancient China, will appeal to fans of Robert Van Gulik's novels featuring the semi-fictional historical character Judge Dee, and includes an appendix of poems from some of China's finest Tang dynasty poets, newly translated by the author, who is an award-wining poet and critic in his own right.

'Brilliant' –Publishers Weekly Starred Review The legendary Judge Dee Renjie investigates a high-profile murder case in this intriguing companion novel to Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder set in seventh-century China. Judge Dee Renjie, Empress Wu's newly appointed Imperial Circuit Supervisor for the Tang Empire, is visiting provinces surrounding the grand capital of Chang'an. One night a knife is thrown through his window with a cryptic note attached: 'A high-flying dragon will have something to regret!' Minutes after the ominous warning appears, Judge Dee is approached by an emissary of Internal Minister Wu, Empress Wu's nephew. Minister Wu wants Judge Dee to investigate a high-profile murder supposedly committed by the well-known poetess and courtesan, Xuanji, who locals believe is possessed by the spirit of a black fox. Why is Minister Wu interested in Xuanji? Despite Xuanji confessing to the murder, is there more to the case than first appears? With the mysterious warning and a fierce power struggle playing out at the imperial court, Judge Dee knows he must tread carefully . . .