Why is this painting unsigned? A curious painting brought in for restoration suggests the existence of a tantalizing secret concealed in the paintings of Taiwanese artist Chen Cheng-Po, drawing the reader into a highly satisfying adventure filled with suspense, sleuthy investigations, actual historical happenings, and plenty of heart.

The curtain on this story rises in the year 1984 during the waning years of the nearly four-decade-long Martial Law era – a time when freedom of speech, assembly, and association was still curtailed by Taiwan’s single-party autocratic government. Cheng, a non-conformist painter working in disheartening obscurity, is approached one day by an odd individual who implores him to restore an unsigned oil painting. Curious, he and his reporter girlfriend Fang Yen engage in some sleuthing and gradually assemble a picture of the life of the man behind the unsigned work – the early twentieth-century modernist painter Chen Cheng-Po. In talking with Chen’s friends and acquaintances, among whom are more than a few nationally renowned artists, the couple finds it curious that, while all are more than happy to share stories of Chen’s studies in Japan, teaching career in Shanghai, and lectures at Zhongshan Hall in Taipei, each is mysteriously tight-lipped about the artist’s death.

Included in this novel are images of a number of Chen’s paintings, including the story’s inspirations – “Linglang Mountain Hall” (1935) and “Self Portrait No. 1” (1928). Only when the couple’s investigation leads them to the Chen family in Chiayi County do they finally learn why the original restoration request was so furtively made, why Chen’s death is so taboo, why some artists hold things so close to their chest, and…why pursuing the truth can be hazardous to one’s health.

Chen Cheng-Po, a member of Taiwan’s first generation of Western-style painters, was born during the inaugural year of Japanese rule (1895) and died just a half century later in 1947, soon after Taiwan’s absorption into Nationalist China. The author deftly weaves Taiwanese art and political histories into a suspense-filled story about Chen’s life of struggle that, in many ways, captures the complex emotions and concerns felt by modern Taiwanese in their search for cultural and national consciousness.