Evidence in the Long Night

In the late 1990s, an era of upheaval swept across the turn of the century, and mysterious cases cropped up across the capital. A can of welfare rations containing a handful of debris uncovered a bloody crime buried beneath a factory. A six-person criminal investigation team from the municipal bureau fought side by side. One studied physical evidence and trace marks. Another broke through psychological defenses during interrogations. Another pounded the streets, chasing down thousands of leads. The last documented crime scenes and preserved crucial evidence. State-owned factories, dilapidated workshops, and smoke-filled residential compounds for factory workers: one major case after another unfolded. The roots of crime were often embedded in the agonies of the times. Some people took the wrong path seeking justice; others were driven into the abyss by the pressures of life. They argued, hit dead ends, and struggled to make sense of human complexity. They did more than hunt down killers. They peeled back the surface of evil to reveal the fates of ordinary people caught in the cracks of their era. A series of standalone cases unfolds as a generation of detectives crosses into the new millennium, steadfast in their pursuit of the truth. As they gradually learned to work together through one major case after another, however, the young officer discovered that each of his five colleagues was burdened by an unresolved knot. An old missing-person case would bring their painful pasts to light.