"They come up with the fakes faster than I can produce the real thing, and they sell them at under half my price. "Do you want me to pay extra, is that it? You want a deposit? I can give you one thousand yuan right now." Mr. "I'm working on other cases at the moment." "Money's not a problem." He cleared his throat. He had refused to remove his suit jacket. Shao wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Outside, the sun shone, baking the air into a solid block of heat. In the corner of an office in an old-fashioned building in Beijing's Chongyang District, the fan was humming loudly, like an elderly man angry at his own impotence. There is a cosy feel to each book and the importance of family and the kindness of strangers are important themes in both. Both authors write with a love for the country the books are set in, despite any faults. THE EYE OF JADE has been compared with the THE NO.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY and I can see some similarities. The mystery side is a way of revealing Mei's and China's past and indeed the investigation hinges mainly on luck and coincidence to get the desired information and you never feel that Mei is in any danger in spite of the shady places and people she visits. The author's affection for Beijing comes through and it feels more like a town than a city with more than ten million inhabitants. From my review of the UK paperback: I thoroughly enjoyed THE EYE OF JADE as it brings the reader directly into a fairly recent China, revealing how people live and work today as well as the turmoil of those families impacted by the Cultural Revolution. Diane Wei Liang's The Eye of Jade, the first of two (so far) books to feature Beijing private eye Wang Mei, has just been published in paperback in the US.
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