On his thirteenth case, Chen Cao, Shanghai’s former chief police inspector and now de facto ex-head of the office for the reform of the justice system, is appointed “number one consultant” to the investigation team charged with shedding light on the violent death of three individuals connected with the prestigious Renji Hospital in Shanghai. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 virus has outgrown Wuhan and is spreading out of control, and now the streets of Shanghai are crisscrossed by ambulances with their sirens wailing and neighborhood committee reps intimating residents to shelter at home.

Writer, poet, and translator Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai and has lived in the United States since 1989, where he was studying T.S. Eliot when the Tienanmen Square protests broke out. His support for the revolt antagonized the Chinese authorities and forced him into exile in the U.S; he teaches Chinese literature at Washington University in Saint Louis. The award-winning thirteen-part Inspector Chen Cao series has been translated into twenty languages and turned into a popular BBC Radio series. It is soon to be adapted to the small screen.