The Live Broadcast of Murder Scenes 凶案现场直播 by 退戈 Tui Ge (HE)

Although this is my very first attempt at a Tui Ge novel, I have heard relatively good reviews about this novel (interesting premise with elements of mystery involved, strong female and male leads), and was extremely excited to read this novel - - only to be sorely disappointed by the novel as it progressed.

Now, the premise is indeed extremely interesting; imagine a world where the police collaborated with a gaming / software company to develop and create a virtual reality game (with the virtual reality world remodeled after famous, groundbreaking, mysterious crimes which had occurred in reality) where high-flying players are invited to play, and are granted the ability to select different "roles" / "characters" to play (for instance, the player can opt to be the "victim", the "accused criminal", or even "police officers"). These games are then broadcast (live, no less!) to the normal, general audience for their viewing.

It is through this virtual reality game that our male and female leads, He Jue Yun and Qiong Cang respectively, meet. Although our male lead is the character that is blessed with financial resources (being the son of the President of the huge gaming / software company who developed the virtual reality game), the author leaves no room for doubt, that our female lead is the person who wears the pants (and the brainy hat) in the relationship. Due to her extreme mental prowess, our female lead is often miles ahead of our male lead in her discoveries and resolution of the virtual reality game and the real life mysteries, often leaving him in the lurch, fumbling and confused, whilst trying his hardest to catch up with our female lead. As the female lead conquers one virtual reality game after the other, we, as readers, come to realise that our female lead is peripherally embroiled in an unsolved real life crime incident, and that her main motive for partaking in such virtual reality games is so that she would be able to come closer to the discovery of the truth of such unsolved real life crime incident (as the virtual reality games are modelled after crimes that are linked to such unsolved real life crime incident).

Unfortunately, despite all these fantastic elements - an interesting premise, a reliable, amazing and capable female lead, and an understanding, supportive male lead - the story simply didn't come together for me, and I had a hard time trying to drum up sufficient interest to complete the novel. Some of the factors which I attribute my disinterest to are as follows - (a) the lack of any foreshadowing, or proper description of the investigation process of the real life crime incident (which resulted in the absence of any tension on my part), (b) the strange suddenness at which the male lead trusted / fell in love with the female lead (where is the relationship development?), and (c) the seemingly one-dimensional nature of the characters in the novel (even the male and female leads). All in all, I had high hopes going into the novel, but found my hopes unceremoniously dashed and trampled on the ground - and it's going to be a long, long time before I pick up another Tui Ge novel.