Women, Seated

A nanny for a powerful Beijing family wavers during a kidnapping plot in this suspenseful and layered novel from Yueran (Cocoon). Yu Ling has planned a picnic in the countryside for Kuan Kuan, her seven-year-old charge, while his mother is in Hong Kong. The family’s regular driver is unavailable, and Yu Ling’s friend arrives to take them in a van without plates. As they are leaving the city, a news report on the radio reveals that the boy’s grandfather, a Communist Party official, is under investigation. Yu Ling’s calls to the boy’s parents go unanswered, thwarting her plan to hold the boy for ransom. “Their money belongs to the people, and we’re the people,” her accomplice reminds her. Eventually, the trio returns to Beijing, where the boy’s father is missing, and Yu Ling is torn between leaving the boy with his relatives or continuing to care for him, which would mean further entwining herself with a family she resents. Thanks to Yueran’s astute storytelling, characters that first appear to be villains become more complex as the years of disappointment and fractured ambitions that have shaped them come to light. This gripping drama offers an intimate view into contemporary China’s class dynamics. (Aug.)