nEx-Chief Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police Bureau investigates the case of a vanished man in this poetic, atmospheric literary mystery set in contemporary Shanghai. n n Over two million copies of the Inspector Chen series sold worldwide. n n With the Chinese government's crackdown on private investigators, times are hard for those in the profession: Which includes Inspector Chen's good friend Old Hunter. n n So when one of Shanghai's most successful businesswomen asks Old Hunter to help a man nicknamed X who's been vanished by the government, reason unknown, he accepts the politically dangerous--but extremely well-paid--case, and immediately turns to Chen for help in turn. n n What crime has the vanished man supposedly committed? Chen plunges in, his investigations soon leading back to the massacre at Tiananmen Square, when X spoke up against the Party--and Chen did not. And as the inspector uncovers the life of a man whose background and tastes strangely echo his own, he becomes desperate not just to save the mysterious X, but to redeem himself for his own mistakes.n