Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Renee Masters:
Peking China, in the final days before WW II: the mutilated body of a young woman, identified solely on the basis of her fair hair and green eyes, was found on the outskirts of the Legation Quarter, the thoroughly Westernized district where most of Peking’s foreigners were concentrated, at the base of the Fox Tower, a place considered haunted by the locals.
Part mystery, part culture study, this story of murder amid social and political unrest in China is spell-binding from the very start. Who could have done such grisly work upon the lovely, young British Ex-Consul’s daughter? Paul French takes you down the dark and twisting back alleys of the city and its corrupt political underbelly. This gripping who-done-it is especially horrifying due to the role high-ranking British authorities played in intentionally deflecting investigators away from the truth in this never-solved murder. Although a meticulously researched work of non-fiction, Midnight in Peking reads like a page-turner you won’t want to put down.
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