Citizen One

Sun Piao is released from Ankang, the psychiatric hospital for Chinese dissidents, and demoted to working in the Vice Squad, ostensibly a non-job since the Chinese authorities claim there is no vice in the People's Republic. But, before you know it, he is trying to solve a string of murders of prostitutes, murders in which elite army officers are implicated. It is a case no one wants and no one wants solved since it spells danger to all involved. As his fellow PSB Officers are butchered, Sun Piao's investigations lead him to take on the princelings, the sons of the highest cadre in China, as he seeks justice for his colleagues and the murdered women. Finding the evidence that his superiors do not want him to find leads him to become involved in a power struggle between the old and the new guard. ' Citizen One is an assault on the senses, violent and lyrical by turns as it pits a decent man against an omnipotent state.' Joan Smith in The Sunday Times 'Oakes' first novel, Dragon Eye, introduced the quick-thinking detective Sun Piao and was such a success it was translated into several other languages. This sequel continues at the same cracking pace, beginning with the gruesome murder, rape and encasing in concrete of a young girl. Oakes ably evokes the sights and sounds of a corrupt, claustrophobic Shanghai against the euphoric backdrop of the 2008 Olympic Games. Sun Piao returns from his incarceration in a high-security hospital for Chinese dissidents, "Ankang", a place that "punishes through the use of injections... injections that swell your tongue so that it bulges out of your mouth". He is demoted at work, joins the vice squad, and finds himself tackling not just the murder of local prostitutes but also the gradual butchering of his own colleagues.' Scotland on Sunday