Bad Kids

By Chen Zijin 

Translated by Michelle Deeter

2014, translated 2022

Pushkin Vertigo


I read Chen Zijin’s The Untouched Crime several months ago. It offered some interesting twists on the crime genre and particularly astute commentary on the kind of crimes that entail high-level investigations and endless resources and those that rate only superficial interest and are quickly forgotten. Chen Zijin also seemed on a mission to one-up Keigo Higashino’s physics professor Manabu Yukawa, the great “Detective Galileo,” and the dialogue was too mechanical for my taste. Bad Kids is a much stronger work of crime fiction. The many plots are deliciously evil. Chen’s villains are not masterminds but desperate people who make grave errors and stumble upon successful strategies almost by accident. There are crimes of passion and premeditated murders. Selfishness, greed, and revenge abound. Chen particularly critiques the obsessive material culture of 21st-century China, bad parenting, and high rates of divorce. Chen’s detectives are fairly wooden, and their approach is slow-moving and pedestrian. To some extent, they serve as a Greek chorus, restating and providing confirmation of the depravity of the crimes. Villains, victims, witnesses, and suspects take center stage, and Chen allows us to listen in on their conversations, conflicts, denials, and confessions. The adults are not particularly bright and Cho’s portrayal of them is hardly nuanced. The most entertaining and thought-provoking characters are three children under the age of 14. The oldest is a hard-working student who is devoted to his single mother. The other two, a boy and a girl, show up at the scholar’s door one day. The two reveal that they escaped from an orphanage; the boy, who protected the scholar from bullies in the past, calls in a favor and begs him to shelter them from the police. The relationship between these three offers a glimpse into a different kind of family that reflects genuine affection, respect, and care. The novel is 300 pages long, but it is so tautly paced that I finished it in two days. Fans of Chinese crime novels will not be disappointed. If you find Bad Kids to your liking, I recommend the works of A Yi, one of China’s most sophisticated writers of crime fiction.

“Chaoyang rushed upstairs. They started in the corridor on the floor below his floor: big red crosses, daubed all over the walls. On either side of his door was scrawled: “An eye for an eye. Everyone must repay their debt.” 

The neighbours followed close behind him. “Chaoyang, get your mother. Does she owe money to anyone?” one asked. 

“Chaoyang, what are you covered in? What is that smell?” another questioned. It was clear that some people were worried for him and others were simply worried that they would be caught in the crossfire. 

“Chunhong is trustworthy—she would never borrow money from someone without paying them back. I bet it was Zhu Yongping’s crazy wife, getting revenge,” a man concluded.”