In a mining town steeped in vice, an ambitious newspaper editor is shot dead on the street, and almost everyone in the community seems to have an interest in his death, even his colleagues and his ice-cold wife. In this passage from the Chinese translation of Dashiell Hammett's seminal Red Harvest, Hammett's hard-boiled detective confronts the grieving father of the murdered man... entirely in mandarin.

Trying to get past competence towards real fluency? One of the things we recommend to more advanced students is worrying less about reading Chinese literature and more about just exposing yourself to whatever fiction will keep you turning the page. And if you like detective fiction we think you'll enjoy this selection. We won't spoil the ending, but if you like the story you can pick up the whole book for less than 15 RMB on Amazon China. And if you can't for some reason send us an email and we'll figure out how to buy it for you.