Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is the head of the Special Case group and is often put in charge of those cases that are considered politically "sensitive" since, as a rising party cadre, he"s regarded by many as reliable. But Inspector Chen, though a poet by inclination and avocation, takes his job as a policeman very seriously, despite the pressures put upon him from within and without, and is unwilling to compromise his principles as a policeman in favor of political expedience. However, after the new Minister of Public Security insists that Chen personally take on a "special assignment", an investigation already begun by Internal Security, he may no longer be able to resist those pressures. The party, increasingly leery of international embarrassment, is unhappy about two recent books that place Mao in a bad light. Now, Jiao, the granddaughter of an actress who was likely one of Mao"s mistresses - a woman suspected of being Mao"s own granddaughter -...