Seventeen-year old Ye Qiusheng’s life is turned upside down by his discovery of the body of grandfather, Ye Junlin. Junlin had been an emigrant from Mainland China to Taiwan, so when Qiusheng sets out to investigate his grandfather’s murder, it becomes an exploration of not only his own family heritage, but also that of the complex bloody relations between Taiwan and communist ruled China. Yet for all the dark weight of history behind it, Ryu remains a fast-paced and entertaining coming-of-age tale about a young man’s adventures in life, love and military service in 1970s Taiwan. It defies the boundaries of genre, being at once both mystery story and historical family saga, and there is good reason that it became the judges’ unanimous choice for a Naoki Prize in 2015.

In 1975, Taiwan is still in the midst of martial law. Citizens have been living with an authoritarian government under martial law for a long time, subjected to patriotic education and taught that to cross the straits to go to Mainland China was to step on enemy ground. Seventeen year-old Qiusheng, however, is oblivious to politics. A normal fun-loving teenager, he leads a carefree life with his extended family in Taipei, and is particularly close to his grandfather, Ye Junlin, the former leader of a guerilla faction in China who fled to Taiwan in 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party came to power. Qiusheng is fascinated by his grandfather’s tales; fighting, brushes with death, and life on the mainland. In Taipei, Junlin built up a successful fabric business and raised four children, including Yuwen, the orphaned son of his dead guerilla comrade. A month after President Chiang Kai-shek dies in 1975, Junlin is killed by an unknown assassin. Police rule that it was probably a vendetta killing, but the murderer is never identified.

Qiusheng’s life begins to unravel after his grandfather’s death. A student at a top academic school, he is persuaded by a childhood friend, Xiaozhan, to take part in a moneymaking scheme to act as a stand-in for exams. When he is found out and expelled from school as a result, he has to move to another one where he is surrounded by gang members and some of the worst delinquents in Taiwan. He learns to defend himself and spends his days carrying a homemade sword around to fend off attacks.

Qiusheng learns pieces of his grandfather’s past from talking to his old guerilla comrades, but the discovery of a family photograph amongst his grandfather’s belongings is the catalyst for a journey in search of Junlin’s history and secrets. He and his buddy Xiaozhan follow a lead on the killer that turns out to be false, but which gets them into trouble with a local gang leader and things turn violent. Yuwen intervenes to save them but ends up going to prison for illegal possession of a firearm.

Things continue to go from bad to worse as Qiusheng fails the university entrance exam and drops out of school. However a newfound romantic relationship with his beautiful childhood friend, Maomao, brightens his life and Taipei becomes their playground as they hang out in night markets and go dancing until the small hours of the morning. Their relationship is cut short when Qiusheng must leave to do his two-year military service. In the army he makes friends and learns more about the nature of war and fighting, which he feels brings him closer to his grandfather in some ways.

After finishing his military service he is devastated to learn that Maomao has already married someone else. His Uncle Yuwen sets him up with a job that gives him the opportunity to visit Japan frequently, and with Japan riding a wave of prosperity in the 1980s, is able to earn good money. Meanwhile, he has been in communication with one of his grandfather’s old allies who stayed in Mainland China, and gradually begins to suspect that Yuwen—whom his grandfather had raised as his own child—has been lying about his identity the entire time. Qiusheng goes to the village in China where Yuwen now lives and confronts him. Yuwen admits the truth and confesses that he went to live with Qiusheng’s family and wait for an opportunity to kill Junlin, in revenge for a massacre Junlin was supposedly responsible for on the mainland.

Qiusheng tries to shoot Yuwen, but instead is shot himself by a local who recognizes him as a relative of Junlin. Qiusheng survives and comes away with a deeper understanding of his grandfather’s life and a more nuanced perspective on the war between China and Japan from 1937 to 1945, and the consequences of its aftermath.

In this story, readers learn along with Qiusheng, about the complex web of loyalties and historical realities underpinning the geopolitics of the region, and will reach the end with a better understanding of why history matters. The Japanese title, Ryu, meaning currents, is a reference to the particular currents of history that shape the present. For English readers who are not familiar with these, however, a more apt title might be Live, Love, Die in the Shadow of the Giant, for that is what this story is ultimately about; it is an engaging portrayal in vivid detail of people living life in the shadow of an enormous constraining political power whose presence cannot be ignored.