A remarkable example of the use of photography as evidence, this noirish police report produced by the authorities of what was then the French Concession of Shanghai, details the investigation into the assassination of Tang Yu-Jen.

The photographs depict the victim, the assassins' suspected ring leader, the scene of the crime, bullets and bullet tracings, shells, fingerprints, and property found in the house occupied by the assassins. Some of these photos verge on abstraction while others, such as a pair of photos showing a pair of shoes left behind, exhibit surrealist qualities. Examples of the ring leader's signature, the location where one of the murder weapons was recovered, maps, floor plans, and official documents are also included. There are a number showing a reenactment of the murder. These images, embellished by blood red lines and with the face of “victim” whited out, are particularly intriguing.

In the tumultuous political atmosphere of China in the 1930s the vice minister for communications in the government of Chiang Kai-Shek was assassinated outside his home in Shanghai on December 25, 1935. The murdered man, Tang Yu Jen (or Tang Yu Jin), was believed to be a collaborator with the encroachment into Chinese political, economic, and military affairs threatened to swallow up China. Under Chiang Kai-Shek the nationalist government had turned a blind eye to Japanese incursions when they served the government's efforts to destroy its opponents, especially the Chinese Communist Party.

At approximately five o'clock on the day of the murder the police were called to the home of Tang Yu Jen, who had been shot five times, as he returned home and stepped out of his car. The police immediately turned their attention to the house adjacent to the victim's, which had been rented only days before to unknown tenants. However by the time the authorities arrived these occupants had already fled the house. Despite collecting extensive ballistic evidence at the crime scene and fingerprints in the abandoned house, the police were unable to establish any.

Then an ordinary theft five months later provided a clue to the murder. Ballistic tests showed that a gun found at the scene of the robbery had been used to assassinate Tang, and the gun was traced to one of the robbery suspects. Not until six months later did the robbery suspect, Ghiou Tsi Gno, and another man taken into custody, Liou Tseng Nan, admit to the murder and identify the man who had recruited them to assassinate Tang.

That man was Yang Yeu Seng, a minor official jailed for creating false documents, whom they had met when they all were serving time in the same prison the year before. Although the two suspects testified in detail about the planning and execution of the murder and admitted that they had occupied the house adjoining the victim's just prior to the shooting, the police failed to apprehend the ringleader Yang Yeu Seng. Why he planned the assassination, and who his true han-ders were, remain a mystery.

Modern cloth backed boards; original wrappers bound in. Some leaves professionally repaired. With a personal library hand stamp on one leaf.