Shanghai murders!

A serial murderer and extreme air pollution activists in China are the focus of Shanghai Chief Inspector Chen and Detective Yu Guangming, with of course, the requisite People's Party attendant. Chen however is diverted away from the murders and directed by Zhao, "Comrade Secretary Zhao, the retired first secretary of the Party Central Discipline Committee," to investigate a group of activists researching and filming about the pollution levels in the country. The figure of Zhao whom for Chen, "had been something of a political patron, having entrusted [Chen]with several high-profile cases and backed him up on a number of occasions. Chen could have long been crushed by his adversaries, as whispered in the inner circle, but for Zhao’s speaking out for him at the top."
Complex and intriguing developments are set against the modern Chinese background.
I must admit that I have long puzzled about how very wealthy Chinese people can exist in and side by side with that country's communist ideal.
I understood more when Chen referred to the "red princes." I was fascinated to discover that the Red "Princes [and Princesses] are are the descendants of prominent and influential senior communist officials in People's Republic of China."(according to Wikipedia). Their antecedents might go back to those involved with Mao on The Long March, or at least prior to the cultural revolution. Chen it seems has run afoul of those from this hierarchy in a previous case.
One of the activists is a woman Chen had spent time with some years before. A woman who inspired a poem he'd had published that had caught the public's imagination.
Various threads run throughout the plot framing the story. I did struggle in the beginning placing the relationship between the characters, having not read any prior novels of Inspector Chen. Fortunately, I didn't feel too far adrift and was soon into the swing of things.

A Severn House ARC via NetGalley ( )