Chinese crime writer arrested for murders 22 years ago

BEIJING: Life may be stranger than fiction for an award-winning Chinese crime writer who has been arrested in connection with a quadruple-homicide that took place more than two decades ago.

For 22 years, police in eastern Zhejiang province tried to crack the cold case of how a family ended up dead in the guesthouse they ran.

They filled stacks upon stacks of notepads with possible suspects and leads, only to learn earlier this month that the answer may have been hiding in plain sight at the local bookstore.

According to a police statement, Liu Yongbiao, a 53-year-old author, was arrested last week at his home in neighbouring Anhui province along with a villager with the surname Wang.

They have been charged with and confessed to the murders.

Authorities told The Paper, a Chinese publication, that Liu remarked as he was being handcuffed: "I’ve been waiting for you here all this time."

Liu, who was a member of the prestigious Communist Party-led China Writers Association, worked with one of the country’s largest publishing houses and had a novel turned into a television series.

In the preface to his novel "The Guilty Secret," according to The Paper, the writer revealed that he was working on a sequel starring a wordsmith who commits a series of murders but is never caught.