THIEF OF SOULS

A maverick Chinese police detective hunts a twisted serial killer.

In the Raven Valley Township of northern China, Inspector Lu Fei is drinking himself into his customary oblivion at the Red Lotus bar when he’s called to a brutal murder scene. The young victim, Yang Fenfang, has been “hollowed out like a birchbark canoe.” Suspicion immediately falls on her boyfriend, Zhang Zhaoxing, who works as a butcher. Once he’s arrested, Lu’s bosses at the Public Security Bureau are content to end the investigation and incarcerate Zhang. Klingborg takes the time to lay out the structure and conventions of law enforcement in China, a welcome aid for Western readers. Lu finds a kindred spirit in sarcastic medical examiner Dr. Ma Xiulan, who takes his rejection of her sexual advances in stride. No forensic evidence implicates Zhang. Though Lu thinks the young man is innocent, he’s overruled by his superiors, who order that Zhang be kept in custody until more conclusive evidence against him can be found. A wave of protests has little effect on this decision. But the discovery of two similar murders in nearby Harbin gives the investigation new life. Terse dialogue dominates this series debut, which wraps its depiction of contemporary Chinese society in the tropes of police novels. Even when the righteous Lu goes too far in interrogating a suspect, he keeps on going.

Klingborg’s twisty, tense police procedural seems poised to kick off a series.