In 'Death Notice,' The Thrills Don't Quite Translate
Zhou Haohui's high-octane cop drama Death Notice aims for Dragon Tattoo-type thrills, but gets dragged down by flat characterizations and odd romantic flourishes.
Humor is notoriously liable to get lost in translation, but the monster impact of Scandinavian noir indicates that with sufficient depth and finesse, crime fiction can successfully cross borders. That's the test put to author Zhou Haohui, whose high octane thriller, Death Notice, is doing Dragon Tattoo-level business in China and has just come out in the U.S.
On the opening page, an anonymous taunt starts things off with a stinging slap: "I smell, but they may not be swayed.
