"WHEN RED IS BLACK" by Qiu Xiaolong

As I had noted in my sidebar, there was a good review of the "Detective Chen" novels and I wanted to read them. The two that I recently read are excellent. This one was written in 2004, four years after introducing Detective Chen Cao in "Death of a Red Heroine." I really like the story and particularly appreciate the writer's use of authentic, recent, cultural, history as the backdrop in the Shanghai murders.

Chen enjoys writing and reading poetry, a talent that he once considered as his vocational calling. But China's cultural revolution propelled him into police workChen uses his vacation time to moonlight as a translator for a well-connected businessman. Only later does he realize that he has purposely been sidetracked to keep him from being the lead investigator in a murder with political overtones.

"THE LAST BUFFALO HUNTER" JakeMosher

Some of my favorite novels have been written from the perspective of a young narrator. Although this story isn't in a league with "Bless Me, Ultima," or "I Heard the Owl Call my Name," or "Captain Alatriste," the author, Jake Mosher, is just as good as the famed authors in the technique of narrating the story from a young boy's point of view.

A dream came true for 14-year old Kyle when his parents gave him a bus ticket to spend the summer in Montana with his paternal grandfather. Though he had dreamed of the "wild West" full of buffalo, cowboys and Indians, he wasn't prepared for the reality of his hard drinking, foul-mouthed, trouble-making grandfather and his friends.

The author skillfully weaves the boy's life into that of the local population in the small town of Mistake, MT