A Case of Two Cities: An Inspector Chen Novel by Qiu Xiaolong. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2006, 320 pp., $24.95 (cloth)

In U.S. paperback fiction, the arrival of an American detective, or spy, in East Asia unleashes a predictable train of events. He will inevitably lock horns with a rich and powerful villain; exchange feet, fists or bullets with the villain's insidious minions; and enjoy at least one steamy encounter with an exotically beautiful but treacherous Asian female.

Poor Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Municipal Police doesn't know what he's missing. While in St. Louis, Missouri, as head of a delegation of Chinese poets, is he assaulted by a muscle-bound mule skinner? Does someone try to slip him a poisoned Budweiser? Is he accosted by the second runnerup in the 2004 Miss Ozarks Beauty Pageant?

No to all three. But he does get his man, in scenes interspersed between recitations of classical poems.