Synopses & Reviews
Modern-Day Beijing. Mei Wang, 31, lives and works as a private detective in China's capital city. After her resignation from the Ministry for Public Security, Mei saw her status drop swiftly in the eyes of her former colleagues, her TV-star sister, and even her mother. But sharp, intuitive Mei has taken her valuable experience and her insider knowledge of the police and city politics and set herself up as a successful private investigator. Now, with her own car, her own business, even a male receptionist to reflect her well-to-do status, Mei Wang is ensconced in her own little corner of the biggest city in China.
When Mei receives a call from the chief executive at Guanghua Record Company, she learns that one of Mr. Peng's top starlets -- the beautiful pop star Kaili -- has been missing for four days. Mei must find the starlet while keeping up the record company's facade that nothing is amiss. Though Kaili is a piece of Mr. Peng's moneymaking machine, Mei learns that she is also a troubled, mysterious young woman whom no one really knows. The discovery of a secret stash of letters in Kaili's apartment sets Mei on an investigation that will take her back to a troubled past that belongs not only to Kaili, but to the entire nation.
Meanwhile, in Gansu Province, a work camp laborer named Lin is finally released from eight years of forced labor on the outskirts of civilization. He angrily remembers the betrayal that cost him his youth and his sweetheart, who was torn from his life when he was sent to the work camp.
As Mei tries to retrace Kaili's steps, so does Lin retrace his own past...and he carries a secret to the case that no one would ever expect.
Paper Butterfly, the second mystery featuring private detective Mei Wang, is as beautiful and lyrical as it is eye-opening.
Synopsis
• International phenomenon: Diane Wei Liang is the ideal international Author - a native of China, she has lived and taught in the U.S. and the UK. Her compelling detective series, like Alexander McCall Smith’s
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, has already captured attention around the globe..
• An authentic and skillful storyteller: Diane Wei Liang fled Tiananmen Square in June 1989 and returned to Beijing six years later to find the sweetheart she lost when the troops rolled in, separating them but never severing their bond. In the Mei Wang mystery series, she draws deeply from her life story, filling her books with vivid details that only someone who has lived it firsthand can know..
• An unusual heroine with a growing reputation : Mei Wang is the first successful female private detective in Beijing, and after capturing readers’ hearts in The Eye of Jade , a Book Sense Pick for February 2008, she now turns her attention to the next challenge. When beloved Chinese pop music star Kaili disappears, Mei must unravel a mystery filled with family secrets and the shadowy truth behind China’s labor camps. As Mei follows a trail of clues, Wei Liang takes readers on an adventure through China that will leave them looking forward to part three..
Synopsis
• International phenomenon: Diane Wei Liang is the ideal international
About the Author
Diane Wei Liang was born in Beijing. She spent part of her childhood with her parents in a labor camp in a remote region of China. In 1989 she took part in the Student Democracy Movement and protested in Tiananmen Square. Diane is a graduate of Peking University. She has a Ph.D. in business administration from Carnegie Mellon University and was a professor of business in the U.S. and the U.K. for more than ten years. She now writes full-time and lives in London with her husband and their two children.