A young forensics technician named Qin Ming is shedding light on the little-known world of Chinese police work, becoming a star with his first novel "Voice of the Dead" and his blogging about juicy crimes.

The second novel "Voiceless Testimony" in his planned forensics trilogy also follows Lao Qin, a young crime-solving forensics pathologist. It is expected to be published next month.

Though China has its share of not very juicy detective fiction, this is the first CSI morgue-type mystery that focuses on the nitty-gritty aspects of the job, painstaking deduction from evidence, and the maturing of a young pathologist.

Given the global fascination with TV police procedurals such as "Criminal Minds" and "Crime Scene Investigation," it's no wonder that 32-year-old Qin Ming has struck pay dirt and thrilled readers who know little about China's public security bureaus and how it goes about investigating violent deaths. The public also know next to nothing about the lives of policemen and women, detectives and forensics experts.

Qin's protagonist is a young police forensics technician, Lao Qin, who brilliantly solves murders with clues from crime scenes he investigates and the autopsies that he performs. The novel is a collection of 20 fascinating stories of murder and violent death. Chapters are titled "Blood on the Roof," "Death of a Fisherman," "A Boy with Big Eyes," "Flames on Christmas Eve" and so on.

As writing, it's pretty flat and one-dimensional, without subplots or layers. Unlike many Western cops, the character himself doesn't appear to have a dark, brooding, cynical side from having all that daily contact with violent death and evil. He has a nice, supportive girlfriend who takes care of family issues. The first book follows him as he starts out as an intern and eventually becomes a qualified forensics technician.

The book opens with Lao Qin's description of his father, one of China's first police forensics specialists and a fingerprints expert. "When I was still a boy, my father expressed the hope that I would take his mantle in the future," he wrote.

Authorities give okay

"Voice of the Dead," the first book in the trilogy, was read carefully and approved by police in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, where the author has worked for seven years. He is part of the provincial forensics team of the Public Security Bureau and works on violent death cases throughout the province - murder, drowning, derailments, auto accidents and so on.

He told Shanghai Daily in a telephone interview that police approved and signed off on both his blog and his book; they like the idea of sharing more information with the public about their work and improving their image as humane professionals. At the same time, they insisted he withhold some investigative techniques and procedures - probably nothing that would surprise a Western crime TV viewer and devote of detective and forensics fiction. Westerners know a lot of the intricacies of crime solving, from deduction and detective work to high-tech lab work. But the veil has not been lifted in China.

Still, Chinese police increasingly are blogging about their work, and Qin's efforts are part of that trend.

"Voice of the Dead" was first published bit by bit online, first as a diary, then as stories, and then in paperback last September.

It shot to No. 1 on the Chinese Amazon best-seller list in October.

"I was surprised to find so many people like my stories," said affable, bespectacled Qin, whose father was a police fingerprints specialist and his mother a doctor.

"We forensic police officers gather as much information possible from both the crime scene and the autopsy room," Qin said from his home in Hefei, Anhui Province. "And we not only state the cause and method of death but also try to built up a psychological profile of the suspects."

Qin was taking a rare break at home during the time of the interview, suffering from a broken finger and glad to spend some time with his wife Wang Lingli and four-year-old son.

He's always on the go, frequently traveling to crime scenes and labs throughout the province. He travels 150 to 200 days a year and in January he and his team worked on two homicides, one of which they solved in three days. They are still working on the other one.

"Yes, it's like the crime solving in American TV series 'Criminal Minds' and 'Crime Scene Investigation,'" he said, adding that he doesn't watch much American TV because his English is poor. Fortunately, there are subtitles.

Qin said he loves the CSI work and gains more confidence and satisfaction each time he solves a case. "This is my job and it always will be," he said.

The Anhui native was always interested in science. In 2003, he earned a degree in forensics medicine from Wannan Medical College in Wuhu, Anhui Province, and then attended the China Criminal Police University in Liaoning Province, graduating in 2005. He then joined the forensics team of the public security authorities of Anhui Province.

He remembers the first time in 1999 when he, as an intern, held a scalpel and sliced into a cadaver, who had once been a classmate. That became material for his first novel.

Earlier on that very day, he was shocked when he unzipped a body bag and saw a familiar face, a classmate from primary school. His old friend was stabbed multiple times in a gang fight.

Qin finally identified the killer after studying the different knife wounds.

The job didn't get easier over time. At times Qin was stunned by the cruelty he saw, but he did become accustomed to seeing death up close.

"You have to face terrible images. I'm lucky that I soon got used to them," Qin said.

One of his classmates in college couldn't take it. He quit forensics after five or six years and went into regular police work. "He told me he could not sleep well for years, but I have never had nightmares," Qin said, with a grim smile.

"Qin breaks my stereotype of a forensics scientist," said Qin's friend and fan, Cai Xiu. "He's a fun guy and a well-read young man."

Cai expects that police forensics will gradually become better understood and respected because of American and Hong Kong TV series and publication of works like Qin's blog and novels.

Back in 1998, when Qin decided to major in forensics, there were only around 300 Chinese forensics graduates a year, he said.

"People even refused to eat with us at the same table," Qin recalled. But most of his classmates are still working at crime scenes and performing autopsies today, he said. Around 10 percent have dropped out.

His physician mother and fingerprint expert father are proud of him, he said, adding, "I'm a combination of both of them."

Family support has been essential. Qin jokes that he didn't even know what his son looked like before the age of three, since the toddler was largely raised by grandparents.

Qin does most of his writing at home at night. And he writes fast.

He started "Voice of the Dead" last February after he was inspired by a celebrity blogger, Dr Yu Ying of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, who posted anecdotes about work on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo account.

Three months later in May, he had completed his first draft of around 220,000 characters. He had dashed off around 6,000 characters a day, plus a few thousand characters a day for his blog.

Parts of the novel were posted on his Weibo blog. Tens of thousands of fans followed the installments and begged for more.

"I never read it a second time once I finished the book," Qin said.

"Every detail in the book is based on real cases. I may have combined some aspects of cases, but they are all real," he said. He drew on first-hand experience and that of other forensics experts and detectives.

Qin also focuses on old, cold cases, and listens to what ordinary people are saying about crimes.

All that work has caused eye strain and Qin suffered from a corneal ulcer, which has now healed.

Qin is tireless, also blogging about shocking cases, such as the serial killer and robber Zhou Kehua who was cornered and shot dead last August by police in Chongqing Municipality. He also blogged about the murder and dismemberment of a Chinese student in Montreal, Canada, last year by his ex-boyfriend.

His blog contains observations such as, "Death will never be the end, it's just the beginning." Sometimes he shares stories and jokes. "In one anatomy class, we shared the cadaver with medical students because of a shortage of cadavers. One female student was afraid and in a panic, she tossed a leg on the autopsy table, splashing waste in my face. I cleaned up and said to her, 'Hi, would you like to go to a movie with me tonight?' She was touched I had cleaned up but told me 'no'."

Not for the faint of heart

Dealing with death every day is not for the faint of heart, or stomach.

"The smell remains for days even after we leave the autopsy room and clean our hands several times," according to Xiao Shengbing, one of Qin's colleagues quoted by media. They wear respirators during autopsies. Most never permit their families to touch their clothes, he said.

All that depressing, stomach-churning work and pressure to solve cases create a lot of stress.

"We smoke a lot," said forensics officer Fang Junjie. "Only smoke can get that smell from our nostrils."

To cope with stress, Qin used to play a lot of cyber games. "I felt I took control there," Qin said, contrasting it with the real world where he felt powerless.

"Now I quit the games and I am keen on writing."

He plans to reread and edit his work, not just dash it off.

"In life one should always look back on the roads one has walked," he said.