HOLD YOUR BREATH, CHINA

A veteran Shanghai inspector monitors a potentially dangerous group of environmental activists while his sidekick matches wits with a serial killer.

Though lately out of favor with the Communist Party, Chief Inspector Chen Cao is still the man to call when a serial killer is baffling Shanghai police. New victims are appearing every week. Chen is intrigued enough to take the case even though he’s been assigned a much more complex task, one suited to his poetic soul. With the air pollution worsening in Shanghai, the government is worried about the increasing power of an attractive activist named Yuan Jing and particularly about the documentary film she is preparing. Comrade Secretary Zhao wants Chen to collect as much damaging information on her as he can. When Chen shares these new assignments with his partner, Detective Yu Guangming, they agree to split the two cases, Yu handling the murder probe and Chen digging into Yuan’s world. Though forensic evidence indeed points to a serial killer, Yu can’t figure out the common denominator among the victims or the motive for the murders. Chen’s investigation prompts him to compose poetry with an environmental theme. As Yu aggressively assembles the evidence explaining the murders, he shares his progress with Chu, who succeeds in infiltrating Yuan Jing’s group but has a hard time squaring his ethics with Zhao’s desires.

Inspector Chen’s 10th mystery effectively uses the genre to explore China’s current pollution crisis.