"Low IQ Crime is the best book I've written, and the peak of my craft," Chen says, adding with self-deprecating humor that it is "pure comedy." —Zijin Chen (author), Guangming.com interview

"Low IQ Crime breaks free of the dark conventions of traditional suspense drama, fusing absurdist comedy with the suspense genre. The plot hinges on coincidence yet locks together link by link, with meticulous logic where one move tips the whole." —TMTPost column

"How did Zijin Chen's stories get so funny? After reading, I wanted to recommend it to friends even more than expected. Brisk pacing, gag after gag—it runs on a different track from the familiar Hong Kong-style hardboiled mystery, and is ideal for three straight nights of sleep-deprived binge-reading." —Maple Leaves Flying Feathers, a Taiwanese book-review outlet

"Twists and coincidences explode off the page. Though it's called Low IQ Crime, the author's deployment of multiple storylines is unmistakably high IQ. It makes you laugh your head off while forcing you to admire its airtight logical loop." —Douban reader

★ In 2026, a Chinese absurdist crime comedy unexpectedly exploded in popularity: its TV adaptation scored 8.2 on Douban, surpassed 10,054 on iQIYI's in-platform popularity index, peaked at a 30.4% market share on Yunhe Data to top the long-form drama hot-broadcast chart, and drew nearly 1 billion views—and this is the novel behind it.
★ Zijin Chen, the first Chinese crime novelist to reach the shortlist of the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger (the "Dagger" of the Crime Writers' Association), saw his novel Bad Kids sell 100,000 copies in English overseas, with its screen rights bought by HBO; readers dub him "the Chinese Keigo Higashino."
★ A rare change of direction for him. Setting aside his signature cold, dark noir, he packs taut reasoning into an absurdist comedy, calling it "the best book I've written" and "the peak of my craft," using a farce of bumbling crooks to tear open a corner of the murky dealings between power and money.
★ One impossibly lucky cop against a gang of hopelessly inept thieves—a chain of coincidences and misunderstandings throws the city's underworld into chaos. You laugh your way to the end, only to discover the hand behind it all was there from the start.
★ Collusion between officials and businessmen, gangland turf wars, bumbling thieves crashing about—three acts of "framing, confrontation, master detective" weave multiple storylines together. The original novel once topped Zhihu Yanxuan's paid-content chart, and the 2026 revised edition has been read by 450,000 on novel platforms—a comic suspense title reignited by its screen adaptation and rediscovered by readers.

A gang of hopelessly inept thieves, one impossibly lucky cop, and a city's underworld turned upside down—an absurdist crime comedy where you laugh first and meet the truth last.

The Provincial Bureau receives an anonymous tip-off, and Officer Zhang Yi'ang is posted to Sanjiangkou to begin a secret investigation.
Meanwhile, two oddball bunglers, Fang Chao and Liu Zhi, hatch a plan for the heist of the century—but no matter how carefully they scheme, things keep going hilariously wrong.
Local tycoon Zhou Rong and his crew plot bribery and set traps for dealings they dare not name.
…
In tiny Sanjiangkou, a motley cast of "talents" converges. Multiple factions tangle through one absurd misunderstanding after another, in a brain-teasing yet farcical showdown.
Through mishaps, miscalculations, and one fatal slip, watch the "rule-breaking master detective" nab the bunglers, upend the shadowy underground deals, and restore a just and peaceful world.

Zijin Chen
A member of China Writers Association and Vice Chair of the Zhejiang Provincial Network Writers Association, Zijin Chen won the 4th Mao Dun New Writer Award (Network Literature Prize) and the 4th Yu Lihua Youth Literature Award, and is dubbed by readers "the Chinese Keigo Higashino."
In 2023 he became the first Chinese crime novelist to reach the shortlist of the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger; his novel Bad Kids has sold 100,000 copies in English overseas, and its screen rights were acquired by HBO. From the "High IQ Crime" series to the "King of Mystery" trilogy (The Untouched Crime, Bad Kids, The Long Night), he was known for a cold, dark noir style; then with Low IQ Crime he set aside his familiar gloom, packed taut reasoning into an absurdist comedy, and called it "the best book I've written." In 2026 his new novels I Won't Back Down and The Long Night: Twin Stars were released together.

An absurd three-act relay—the trap of framing, the chaos of confrontation, the master detective's wrap-up—each link locking into the next, the truth revealed only at the final laugh:

Act I　Framed?!
Act II　Showdown?!
Act III　The Master Detective?!