Jade and Fire: A Novel of Emerging China

by Raymond J. Barnett

Peking, winter 1948. Encircled by Mao's Communist armies, Nationalist warlord Fu Tsoyi seeks the solution to saving Peking in his Taoist concubine's lessons in calligraphy and passion. Chief Inspector Bei wrestles with a string of brutal courtesan murders, slowly realizing with horror that the solution to the murders is tied to saving his beloved Peking, and China's emergence into the modern world.

386 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1987

Reviews

[Steve R]

I read this 1987 novel sometime in the 1990s while enthralled by the east in general, and Chinese culture and political history in particular. It certainly provided me with ample doses of both, as it presents the efforts of a police inspector in Beijing to solve a series of murders of local courtesans in the late 1940s while at the same time the city is about to be taken over by the advancing forces of Mao’s Red Army. The contrasts these dual plot lines allow to develop between ancient Chinese cultural practices and modern political values and motivations is very well handled within the confines of a solid murder mystery.

Unlike most novels set in this place and time, Barnett deserves especially credit for making all of his major characters of Chinese background. Clavell, Elegant and others almost always included a British or American hero as their major protagonist whereas Barnett’s use of actual historical figures like Chou Enlai and Mao is complemented by his creation of major fictional figures with a fully Chinese background.

Unfortunately, I can remember almost nothing from the book now, a quarter of a century at least after reading it.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite betraying its 1987 publication date with implausible coincidences and some fanciful interludes, this novel of the last days of Nationalist Beijing in late1948-early 1949 allied to two murder mysteries is ultimately satisfying. Bei Menjin is the fictitious Chief Inspector of Beijing’s police summoned to the genuine burning of the prior of a Taoist temple and then the murders of prostitutes. Real figures like Fu Zuoyi mix in a complex plot which retains interest because of the history and the Taoist background

[Clayson Shumway · Rating 3 out of 5]

You cannot appreciate the great without exposure to the perfectly average. Good murder mystery mixed with a little bit of free hippie love.