Criminal justice expert He Jiahong has an identity that is strange to the people in his circle: a writer of detective stories. The professor of law, who teaches Evidence Investigation and Evidence Law at Renmin University of China, spends much of his spare time on his writing, which has become quite fruitful.

He has so far published four detective novels: The Mad Woman (Feng Nu), The Enigma of the Dragon Eye Stone (Longyanshi Zhi Mi), The Mysterious Ancient Painting (Shenmi De Guhua) and The Evils in the Stock Market (Gushi Muhou De Zui'e).

All four books have been translated and published in France, and have been warmly welcomed by French readers. Encouraged by the prospect of Chinese detective stories' success in the Western market, Penguin, the world's leading book publisher, has decided to bring them to English-speaking readers.

The translation of "The Mad Woman" is currently in progress now and if everything goes smoothly, the book should hit bookshops by the end of this year. Negotiations are continuing on the publication of Italian editions.

Rare subject

Detective novels, such as the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle's famed Sherlock Holmes and the works of Agatha Christie, have a very large readership in China.

But for the writing of detective novels, it is a different story. It seems that Chinese culture is more suited to brooding martial arts novels, where swordsmen use their martial skills to "rob from the rich and give to the poor."

Detective stories, which may lack legends and require more logic, have been absent for many years. Besides that, the genre is never considered "real literature" by academia and is never taken too seriously.

That is why He's crime novels have drawn so much interest, a field traditionally dominated by Westerners in which only very few Chinese have ever set foot.

He's novels have riveting plots, and his energetic writing also presents a vivid panorama of contemporary China.

Among the several authors engaged in writing detective stories in China, He is probably the only one who has a legal background. This grants him an "expert angle," which guarantees the credibility of his descriptions of crimes, law and cracking cases.

He also weaves his rich experience with the different strata of Chinese society into his writing. The story of Mad Woman is set in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, a place where he worked on a farm as an "educated youth" from 1969 to 1977, and the story of Mysterious Ancient Painting is set in Guangdong and Hong Kong, where he stayed as a visiting scholar between October 1996 and March 1997.

Like many widely read detective novels, all of He's four books are in a series with the same protagonist, Hong Jun, or Master Hong. Considering the social reality of China, and to make the story progress better, Hong is neither a private detective nor a police officer, but a lawyer who strives to make sure that justice prevails whatever the cost. This raises a different perspective on cracking cases.

Hong's character, a Chinese man who returns from the United States, also echoes He's own experience the professor got his doctoral degree at Northwestern University in 1993.

Literary youth

For He Jiahong, detective writing is a way of fulfilling his young dream of writing literature.

In his early 20s, he had never expected himself to become a law professor.

He was born in Beijing in 1953 and was sent to a farm in Heilongjiang in 1969 when he was only 16. A love for poetry was soon ignited within him, when he published a few poems in literature publications and a local newspaper. Those were largely "revolutionary poems" which were meant to inspire his fellow "educated youths." He also wrote many poems that did not deal with revolution, but those were never published.

In 1975 he decided to write a novel to record his experiences in Heilongjiang. It took him more than two years, and contained about 300,000 Chinese characters.

After he returned to Beijing in 1977, he worked as a plumber at a construction company but his enthusiasm for literature persisted. He visited some experienced writers, sent his novel to them, and was told that it would be better to begin with short stories.

He knew his novel was not good enough but he was not discouraged. He took the advice of those writers and sent some short stories to literary publications, but faced the same rejection.

With the end of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), most things returned to normal, and universities reopened.

In 1979 He took the national college entrance examinations. Although he had only six years of formal schooling, he managed to pass and was enrolled by a branch college affiliated to Renmin University of China.

He picked up law as a major accidentally, without even knowing anything about the subject.

At university he worked very hard, and received a bachelor's degree four years later. He continued as a graduate student for a master's degree at Renmin. After graduation he became a teacher at his university for four years, then went to the United States twice to study at the law school of Northwestern University, where he got his doctoral degree in 1993.

While on average it takes three to five years to get such a degree, it took He only a little more than one year, something of which he is intensely proud. Then by the end of 1993 he returned to Beijing to continue his teaching career.

However, as his interest in law grew, which made him decide to choose it as his career, he was forced to suspend his writing because he wanted to concentrate wholeheartedly on law.

For about 15 years he did not write one line of fiction not even a short story.

"But in my heart, my love for literature never ceased to exist," he said.

While in the United States he saw many legal professionals who were also successful fiction writers. He felt his heart stir.

In 1994 he came to realize that there were not many good detective stories set or written in China. And when he talked about this with some friends, he was told he should write detective stories to combine his speciality in criminal law with his love for writing.

"That conversation made me think a lot, soon I started writing Mad Woman. The original title was Deep Pool of Sentiment (Qing Yuan), and it was published as a series in China Youth Daily in 1995," He said.

"To my own surprise, it had quite an impact and I even received letters from readersThat was really different from my academic work. And I enjoyed it very much because I got reactions from strangers," he said.

But a law professor who writes novels really went beyond people's imagination.

Encouraged by his success and the response from readers, He went on writing his second, third and fourth novels frenetically, almost using up every minute of his spare time. "Even while sleeping I was always thinking about the story," he said.

Will he write another detective story in the near future?

"I don't know," he said. "It depends on whether I will come across something inspiring and have the time."

(China Daily July 17, 2006)