Qiu Xiaolong

Now a BBC Radio 4 Drama Series. Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau is summoned by an official of the Party to lead a highly charged corruption investigation. Tentacles have spread through the police force, the civil service, the vice trade and deep into the criminal underworld.

The principal figure and his family have long since fled to the United States, beyond the reach of the Chinese government. But the network is still intact and it is only a matter of time before it becomes stronger than before. Chen is charged - and it is a job he cannot refuse - with uncovering those responsible, and destroying the organisation from the top down to its roots.

In a twisting case that reunites him with his counterpart from the US Marshals service - Inspector Catherine Rohn - Chen must find a measure of justice in a corrupt, expedient world.

Now a BBC Radio 4 Drama Series. Former dancer and party loyalist Wen Liping vanishes in rural China just before she was to leave the country. Her husband, a key witness against a smuggling ring suspected of importing aliens to the US, refuses to testify until she is found and brought to join him in America.

A few days later, a badly mutilated body turns up in Shanghai's Bund Park. It bears all the hallmarks of a triad killing. The US immigration agency, convinced that the Chinese government are hiding something, send US Marshal Catherine Rohn to Shanghai to join the investigation.

Inspector Chen, an astute young policeman with twin passions for food and poetry, is under political pressure to find answers fast. When Catherine Rohn joins him he must decide what is more dangerous: to hide the truth, or to risk unleashing a scandal that could destroy his career.

Now a BBC Radio 4 Drama Series. When Inspector Chen Cao agrees to do a translation job for a Triad-connected businessman he is given a laptop, a 'little secretary' to provide for his every need, medical care for his mother. There are, it seems, no strings attached .

. . Then a murder is reported: Chen is loath to shorten his working holiday, so Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation.

The victim, a middle-aged teacher, has been found dead in her tiny room in a converted multi-family house. Only a neighbour could have committed the crime, but there is no motive. It is only when Chen returns and starts to investigate the past that he finds answers.

But by then he has troubles of his own.