Playing for Thrills
Wang Shou
No Exit pbk, 325pp, £6.99
Review by Gerald Houghton (1997)

The narrator of Playing For Thrills falls under investigation for a decade-old murder when his former friend finally fetches up, beheaded. The problem is not so much that he has to clear his name as satisfy himself as to whether or not he was responsible. Friends give contradictory evidence, and the girl he was supposedly hooked-up with at the time cannot be found.

Despite its day-glo colours and ludicrous comparisons to John Woo, Shuo’s novel has far more in common with the films of Wong Kai-Wai than anything in that tiresome two-(ham)fisted oeuvre. French cinema, especially the likes of Kassovitz’s La Haine, tells us more about the boastful Beijing underclass Shou paints than our own notions of contemporary China.

But lest you imagine it’s all simple flip-hip disaffection, structurally the book finds echoes in Kafkaian nightmare and dream sequences reminiscent of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. And finally, before we collapse under the dead-weight of references, the looming end cannot help but reminds us of literary gamester James Sallis. The book is a quest not for answers (there are precious few) but identity. The narrative pull is not towards resolution and revelation for, as someone concludes, ‘At most we can put off the inevitable for a while’.

Far from the simple crimer the cover suggests, an engagingly sophisticated animal, and, as such, a major new feather in No Exit’s ambitious cap.