The Golden Hairpin: Detective Legend by Ancient Chinese Female Sherlock Holmes

"This is the first book in a series of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot like novels set in ancient China and there are a lot of mysteries that you are anticipating her to solve."  

BEIJING, March 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, an ancient suspense novel entitled The Golden Hairpin was introduced by Amazon and published on Goodreads, the world's largest online reading community owned by Amazon. This novel, themed by the collision of Chinese ancient history, revenge & murder and female detective, has sparked a heated discussion among readers since it showed up in stores and has been praised as an Ancient Chinese-version of Sherlock Holmes.

The Golden Hairpin is written by Ceceqinghan, a well-known Chinese romantic fiction writer. The book series consists of four books, among which, the first one has been introduced by Amazon. The story is mainly about Huang Zixia, a famous female detective in the late Tang Dynasty of China who experienced family upheaval, was framed up as the murderer for killing her entire family and was listed as wanted. While fleeing alone to the capital to redress the injustice, she encountered Lord Li Shubai, who promised to help her thoroughly investigate the murder case. In exchange, Huang Zixia was asked to disguise herself as a man and lurked around Li Shubai to investigate his suspicious fiancee. From then on, the two ran across a series of bizarre and unresolved cases, behind which the truth was enough to overturn the entire Tang Dynasty.

Different from Sherlock Holmes, who wears a top hat with a tobacco pipe in his mouth, Huang Zixia was usually low-key in the image of men while detecting cases in order to avoid revealing her identity. This seems to be an artful commonality with Hua Mulan, another ancient Chinese figure familiar to Chinese culture, while her detective partner - the sagacious and sober doctor John H. Watson, turned into Lord Li Shubai, a cold-hearted man with noble status. The two took advantage of each other, and then were attracted to each other, gradually growing sincere feelings.

The books of The Golden Hairpin, as a suspense series, seem to be independent of each other but conceal secrets, so all the stories can be connected once clues have been found. The first story tells the first encounter between the hero and heroine as well as the mysteries around them, which is only the tip of the iceberg for the entire stories. In the sequels, with the investigation going deep, various unresolved cases come one after another. The books of the series, A Sudden Clap of Thunder in Heaven, Dead Body hidden under Red Candle and Cannibal Red Fish, are thrilling in plots and full of unexpected turns.

According to the existing comments on the Goodreads website, this female detective novel is favorably impressed in the hearts of readers. As reader Joy thinks: "The Golden Hairpin is going to be adapted into a China produced drama, which is how it initially attracted my attention." Reader Kira believes: "A strong start to what appears to be an excellent series with a female Sherlock Holmes-esque heroine, plucky, determined, and cunning while maintaining a strict sense of self and without sacrificing her femininity."

Some readers also express their interest in the ancient Chinese history and culture described in the book and think it is a worth-reading book, leaving out the confusion at the beginning of the translated book title. "There is a good storyline and plot backed with solid mystery element all through the book. I look forward to the sequel," said Pratibha.

Actually, it is not surprising that Amazon takes a fancy to The Golden Hairpin, which is also well-received in China. As the best-selling book with 800,000 copies sold, it is highly recommended by major reading platforms and offline bookstores. After its comic book adaptation was put online, it had gained great attention as evidenced by online total popularity value of 2.46 billion. Its movie and television copyrights have been successfully exported to Thailand, Vietnam and other countries. Ceceqinghan, the writer, has also won more than 120,000 fans on social media. Above all, women detective novels, especially high-quality suspense novels against historical and cultural backgrounds, are currently rare in the publishing industry across the world.

This is probably attributed to the unique vision of Cat Century Media Co.,Ltd., the producer of The Golden Hairpin. Cat Century Media Co.,Ltd., a famous Chinese content provider, and an outstanding performer in leading writer agency, owns the copyrights of hundreds of novels. Suspense reasoning works like The Golden Hairpin are the focus of its product lines. There are many such works, such as Jinsha, based on the unearthed cultural relics from Jinsha site, the famous historical and cultural heritage in southwestern China, and Zerg:The Call to Minds, the Global Chinese Sci-Fi Nebula Award-winning work, telling the story of alien Zerg's invasion into the earth, etc.

SOURCE Cat Century Media Co., Ltd