It’s an ordinary day in provincial China – except a bored high-school student is planning to murder his only friend. He invites her round to the flat he shares with his aunt, strangles her, stabs her 37 times, stuffs her head-first into the washing machine, and goes on the run.
Oneworld Publications, £10.99 (ebook £9.11)
Easily outsmarting the authorities and evading capture, his lust for danger soon takes hold again. He tips off the police as to his whereabouts, and a game of cat and mouse begins. The police still can’t catch him, so he gives himself up.
As the remorseless student’s trial begins, we slowly learn his psychological back story. A Perfect Crime is not always a comfortable read, but it is an unlikely page-turner and provides a chilling insight into the mind of a psychopath who sees murder as an intellectual challenge and kills someone merely to relieve the monotony of his existence.
