
Read an excerpt from Qiu Xiaolong's second book, A Loyal Character Dancer, in which Chief Inspector Chen's loyal sidekick, Detective Yu, is disillusioned with his career in the police force.
In his childhood, he had nurtured dreams about a career in the police force, listening to his father's stories about solving cases. A few years after he became a cop, however, he had few illusions left about his career... Nevertheless, Detective Yu took his job seriously, believing he could make a difference in other people's lives. He had developed a theory about being a good cop in China now. It depended on one's ability to tell what could and what could not be done effectively. It was because there were many cases not worthy of hard work as the conclusion was predetermined by the party authorities. For instance, the outcome of those anti-government-corruption cases, in spite of all the propaganda fanfare, would be only to swat a mosquito, but not to slap a tiger. They were symbolic, only for show. So, too, this investigation, though not part of a political investigation, seemed to be merely a matter of form. And that was perhaps true of the Bund park case, too. The only effective action would be to uproot the triads, but the authorities were not ready to do so.
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