Zhang Dongsheng refuses to grant his wife Xu Jing a divorce. He was penniless when they got married; the condition of their union was that if they were to part ways, she would retain all assets. He decides to take control and spends a year planning the murder of his parents-in-law and his wife. A year later, Zhang takes his parents-in-law to a sightseeing spot on a cliff. Pretending to adjust his in-laws into a position for a good photograph, he pushes them off the cliff. Yet, he could not have foreseen that his perfect crime has been caught on film by the three kids playing with their camera in the distance. Even worse, these kids are not naive . . . 

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Smartly written in clinically simple Chinese, Bad Kids is an ultimate page-turner and a refreshing alternative to the usual detective adventure and the coming-of-age story. Focusing more on 'how they do it' and 'why they do it', it takes the reader onto a breathtaking journey into the development of the detective-killer psyche of Zhu Chaoyang, the leading figure of the three kids and the true protagonist of the novel, and finally to the slow unfolding of inevitable disasters.