For one, China was dealing with an internal conflict as well as a Japanese invasion, with the inhabitants of Peking steeling themselves for the seemingly inevitable during the final days of the city's colonial period.
As if tensions weren't already running high enough, a young British schoolgirls, Pamela Werner, was found brutally murdered at the base of The Fox Tower, one of the city's more famous landmarks. Midnight in Peking by Paul French is a non-fiction crime book, a novelization of the whole affair, following the investigations led by the British and Chinese police, as well as Pamela's own father.
The first thing that needs to be stated is that at no point did French substitute facts with sensationalism; the whole thing has been thoroughly and personally researched by him, allegedly over a period of seven years.
The sole purpose of the novelization is to give the whole thing an entertainment factor, one that would make it suitable for those who don't really have an interest in the whole ordeal to begin with.
I have to admit that from a technical perspective, the whole thing reads like a gritty whodunit, perhaps something in the same spirit as Agatha Christie's works, but with more brutality and seediness to it.
Regardless of whether you have ever heard of the event, I can guarantee that this is one murder mystery that will retain your attention, especially seeing as how it is real and the facts presented are the ones actually unearthed and available to the public.
Peking is also described in startling detail, taking you through its steamy alleyways, cluttered marketplaces, oppressive police stations, and awe-inspiring shrines. The characters are also given a fair amount of life, and though of course it is debatable whether the case's actors were as portrayed here, no questionable details have any sort of consequence on the veracity of the presented events.
The spiritual and superstitious elements certainly give the story a much more mystical and surrealistic feeling, something even further enhanced by the fact that the affair remained unsolved. By the way, this is not a spoiler, as it's actually a factoid you can read about in any brief description of the book; it's all about the chase, not the catch.
In the end, you actually end up forgetting for certain periods at a time that you are reading something which actually happened; it all feels larger-than-life, some kind of Kafkaesque conspiracy where mysterious government officials are involved, as well as a number of peculiar and oddly-suspicious individuals, not to mention that at the center of it all is a young woman who is exactly everything she seems not to be. The saying that truth is stranger than fiction is certainly true here.
 | Paul FrenchPaul French is (ironically) a British author, and he specializes mostly in works relating to Chinese history and society, with perhaps his most widely-celebrated work being Midnight in Peking. For it, he was given the 2013 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category, in addition to which there are already plans in motion to adapt it into a television show. |
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