A famous Chinese aphorism goes, "Yingxiong nan guo meiren guan (It is difficult for a hero to pass by [i.e. disregard] the gate of a beauty)."
That was apparently the case with the late Mao Zedong, whose personal physician published a postmortem account of Mao's declining years that revealed the revolutionary credited with founding the modern Chinese state boasted a legendary sexual appetite, which he sustained well into his dotage.
Qiu Xiaolong's mysteries, starting from "Death of a Red Heroine" in 2000, have focused on the legacy of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the radical purges inspired by Mao that led to a decade of political anarchy in China and destroyed the lives of millions.