At 22, Lu Shen enters the police force with outstanding grades in criminal investigation. His very first case is the West Suburbs villa murder: Li Wen, wife of entrepreneur Zhao Mingyuan, is found dead at home. A silver button and black tie at the scene not only resemble the methods used in the old Red Raincoat serial murders, but also contain fibers from a police uniform, casting the case in doubt. Lu Shen is entrusted with the investigation thanks to his keen eye, only to find himself entangled in one mystery after another: skin tissue beneath the victim’s fingernails, a black SUV with tampered GPS data, a mysteriously missing pair of suit trousers, and warnings sent by anonymous text all point to a carefully orchestrated plot. He sees through Wang Zhiqiang’s scheme to impersonate Zhao Mingyuan and create an alibi, but discovers that Wang is merely a pawn. Behind the “Red Raincoat case reenactment plan” Wang mentions lies an even greater darkness. Over the next forty years on the force, Lu Shen struggles amid murders and undercurrents: he tracks copycat killers, cracks a locked-room case entangled with political and business interests, faces threats and framing for investigating old cases, and witnesses comrades fall in the line of duty. Only on the eve of his retirement does he discover that the clues from Li Wen’s case are tightly intertwined with the trail of the real Red Raincoat killer. The end of his lifelong pursuit of the murderer is, in fact, the beginning of unraveling every mystery.
