I brought the thriller The Secret History with me during the Beijing trip. That's the recommendation from my daughter who has just read Donna Tartt's novel.

In the first chapter, I met a boy of twenty-eight years old from California; he went to study at New England where he joined a Greek course with four other classmates.

Getting to know five characters seemed tough for me. All of them could be smoking cigarettes and using drugs, and most of them are Greek to me. When I showed my daughter how I drew a table to tell one from another, I was reassured that it's not a must.

"Don't worry," she winked. "Go on reading. You will know each of them soon."

Of course, my daughter knows very well Donna Tartt is a gifted writer. I shouldn't have to worry about the way a murder story unfolded, about who could die, and who would be the pallbearer. It would be difficult to mistake any of the characters crafted by Donna Tartt.