Saturday, January 21, 2012

Chinese New Year Crime Fiction: Gung Hay Fat Choy

恭賀發財 Gung Hay Fat Choy! This is the Year of the Dragon. Chinese New Year begins Monday, January 23.

Living in San Francisco, the City of Dragons, I've put together Chinese New Year's Mystery Lists for the past few years! Not an easy task. This year I've added some titles (scroll down) that take place in China, not necessarily during the New Year. As always, I welcome any titles.


Kelli Stanley, author of City of Dragons, guest post on Chinese New Year.

Year of the Dog by Henry Chang 

Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley 
Neon Dragon by John Dobbyn
 Dim Sum Dead by Jerrilyn Farmer 
The Skull Cage Key by Michael Marriott
The Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan
City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley
The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee by Robert Van Gulik (7th Century china) "New Year's Eve in Lan-Fang"

Short story by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer: "The Lady Fish Mystery", EQMM, September/October 1996.

The Nancy Drew Notebooks: The Chinese New Year Mystery by Carolyn Keene

A good reference book for contemporary crime fiction in China: Chinese Justice, the Fiction: Law and Literature in Modern China by Jeffrey C. Kinkley (Stanford University Press)

Not specifically about Chinese New Year, here's a short list of authors/mysteries that are set in China:
Ralph Arnote, Hong Kong, China
Biggers, Earl Derr, Charlie Chan: The House Without a Key, The Chinese Parrot, Behind the Curtain, The Black Camel, Keeper of the Keys
Lisa Brackmann, Rock Paper Tiger
Stephen Coonts, Hong Kong
Charles Cumming, Typhoon
Xiaolong Qiu, Death of a Red Heroine (and other titles)
Howard Goldblatt, Playing for Thrills
Jim Michael Hansen, Bad Laws
S.G. Kiner, The Hong Kong Connection
Diane Wei Liang, The Eye of Jade
Paul French, Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China
John L. Mariotti, The Chinese Conspiracy
Peter May, The Firemaker
Lisa See, Flower Net
Deborah Shlian, Rabbit in the Moon
Eric Stone, Shanghaied
Nury Vittachi, The Feng Shui Detective

Yin-Lien C. Chin, The "Stone Lion" and Other Chinese Detective Stories

Also I'll have more recipes on my other blog, Dying for Chocolate, for a Chocolate Chinese New Year.

5 comments:

Harvee said...

Offhand, I can think of "Red Jade" by Henry Chang, (2010) and also
"The Silent Girl" by Tess Gerritsen (2011). Chang's novel continues the series in NY Chinatown and Gerritsen's is set in Boston's Chinatown. Both are mysteries.

Thanks for the list. Many of these I haven't read and will have to add them to my list!

Carol N Wong said...

I have 'Chop Suey' by Ty Hutchison which I am eager to read.

I added so many books from your list to my wish list!


Carol

Kelly Robinson said...

Glad to see Xiaolong Qiu's Inspector Chen novels on the list! Soho Crime is such a great publisher.

Bertrand Mialaret said...

Thanks for a very useful list. One correction: "Playing for Thrills" is by Wang Shuo, an important chinese writer not specialised on crime novels; H. Goldblatt is the translator.
I have been writing several posts on crime fiction in China on my blog www.mychinesebooks.com and my favorite is Qiu Xiaolong. But I would suggest three books:
- Catherine Sampson , an English woman living in Beijing with "The pool of unease",
-Eliot Pattison, an American lawyer
who writes long, complex and well researched novels on Tibet,
-"Sherlock in Shanghai", a translation of crime stories written before 1940 by a chinese writer Chen Xiaoquing and translared by Tomothy C. Wong.
Happy year of the dragon.

Janet Rudolph said...

Thanks so much, Bertrand, for the additions & correction. I look forward to visiting your blog! Sounds fabulous & right up my alley..