Peter May's Chinese Whispers

Chinese Whispers by Peter May

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Inadvertently, I'm doing this series in random chronological order. I read one other novel and I thought I'd give the series another chance, hoping it would get better, but it really doesn't. I criticized the portrayal of Margaret in the first novel I read (The Killing Room) in the series because she was a b***h on wheels and I couldn't figure out how she and Li had ever gotten together. Well, in this one, she whines constantly. Sorry, but it does not entertain me listening to women indulging in self-pity because they have children and have to slight their careers. C'mon. We've got an app for that and have had it since the 1960s. Anyway, this "Beijing Ripper" case was pretty interesting but when the solution finally comes it's quite mundane. Do I want to continue back in time to read the earlier book(s) in the series? Oh, I suppose I will, but I will probably be finished with this series at that point, unless I find out that Li has ditched Margaret and turned his attention elsewhere. Overall, I find this series run-of-the-mill except for its Chinese locale.

Qiu Xiaolong's series is far better with more complex characterizations, more complex political situations and insights, and much more layered cases. And poetry. If you like that in detective fiction!



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Peter May's The Killing Room

The Killing Room by Peter May

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I plan to read more in the series, because I've started with one of the later books, but I am not impressed. The environment (geographical, cultural, political, social) in which the investigation takes place is a draw, but I find Margaret Campbell to be a totally unpleasant character, one about whom I don't care at all. I should go back and read an earlier book in the series so I can figure out what ever made her attractive to Li. I sure don't get it at this point. I think Mei-Ling is a much more attractive character and hope she appears elsewhere in later books.



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China Development Research Foundation: Recommending phase-out of one-child policy

On "Brave Dragons: A Chinese Basketball Team, An American Coach, and Two Cultures Clashing"

I discovered this book in reading an article in the NY Times Magazine ("Away Game," Feb. 5, 2012). That article profiled one American player and his experiences in playing basketball and entering into a new culture in China. It's not simply about NBA players in China, but rather about China and basketball and professional sports in general. It looks at basketball and American players transplanted to China and creates a fascinating picture of part of Chinese culture that I've never read about anywhere else. I'm not even interested in the NBA but the article by Yardley was excellent and piqued my interest in the book mentioned in passing.

Yardley has chosen a very clever way to examine modern China. What he does is pick a subject that most Americans will be somewhat familiar with, the NBA. Then he transplants the subject to China by following an American retired NBA coach who has been hired to coach a privately-owned team in one of the lesser-known (from the Western perspective) Chinese cities (Taiyuan in Shanxi province). We might think, well, the NBA is the NBA no matter where it lives and basketball is basketball. But Yardley quite brilliantly tells us a story that illuminates the culture and aspirations, and to some degree the history, of modern China by placing the known quantity of the NBA into an environment that is, in fact, very foreign and not particularly hospitable to American expectations about sports.

The Miami Heat need to make money by selling tickets and signing deals. Do the Brave Dragons have to make money in these ways? No, because Boss Wang is very, very rich. American NBA players roam around at will, throw their money around and make the headlines in ways good and bad. What about the Dragons' players? They live in a Spartan dorm outside the city center where they are virtual prisoners. But, what if an owner spends a lot of money to hire a new coach because he wants his team to get better, be "American" and play American-style ball? Well, you would then assume that he'd hire the best and give him leave to mold the team (except perhaps if he attended the George Steinbrenner School of Sports Management) using American methods (a wide range of kinds of fitness training suited to individual needs, forging relationships with individual players based on knowledge of their personalities and what works best with each, etc.). Old habits die hard, though, for men of Boss Wang's generation.

The story is frustrating and funny and informative in what it shows us about Chinese sports culture and its growing pains, though there is no doubt whatsoever of Yardley's sympathies with his subjects, particularly the young men who play professional basketball and want to be better players than they are. If you are looking for a book that makes fun of the Chinese, this isn't it. We get a lot of context so that we understand, for instance, why Boss Wang thinks that screaming at his players and telling them what pathetic, lazy failures they are will motivate them to improve.

If you ever thought that sports was a universal language, this book will make you re-think that assumption. You don't even have to like or understand basketball to enjoy this book.

Right now I am watching women's Olympic basketball streaming live from London. The USA and China are playing. Knowing what the experience for male basketball athletes is like in China makes me look at these Chinese women with a great deal of curiosity. That's a book yet to be written.

"Midnight in Peking" review

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I put this book in my "Global detective fiction" shelf, though let me say right away that it is not fiction. I enjoyed every minute of this book and it ended all too soon.

The time is 1937 and the place is the area in and around the Foreign Legation quarters in old Peking. Politics all over the world are in turmoil with events leading to WWII taking place in Europe, and in China the brutal Japanese are invading and the already feeble nationalist government is on the ropes.

A nearly-19 year old Englishwoman, Pamela Werner, is killed, her body mutilated and dumped at the base of the Fox Tower just outside the Legation. The details of the joint Chinese and English investigation, its constraints and its flaws is fascinating in and of itself. When the investigation is unable to point to a culprit, Pamela's father spends the rest of his years in Peking doing the investigation that the police should have done. But his findings fall on deaf ears. Are the British afraid to lose face? Is that why the British powers ignore the findings and call their representative on the team home to Tientsin? Was the original investigation, which seemed fairly competent for the time and place, in fact, undercut by restraints and subterfuge on the Chinese side? Peking soon falls to the Japanese...is it just that everyone has more important things to think about than a dead girl who was a bit of a handful while she was alive and perhaps no better than she should have been?

Historian Paul French has reconstructed the entire case, from the events leading up to the fatal night, to the actions and investigations of all of the parties involved. He quite literally found by fortunate accident a folder of records stored in the British archives that traced the case, including ETC Werner's many letters filled with his additional investigations and pleading for more action on the case. From these records and his other investigations, French puts together a quite believable chain of events and points the finger at one man in particular. This case was unsolved from 1937 to 2011 and quite forgotten, but it is now resolved and there can be little doubt that French's version is valid.

Ok, THAT is the story. It's well-told and reads like an exciting murder mystery. For me, the bonus was the very detailed portrait of Peking during this period and the foreign presence in China's coastal cities such as Shanghai and Tientsin. I can't say enough about the lively realistic (and unsavory) picture that emerges of the Legation area of Peking. I spent half the time I was supposedly reading the book looking for maps online so I could follow the action. It turns out that many of the places and streets that feature prominently in the story are still there (remarkable, considering the construction in Beijing over the last few decades).

If you are interested in that aspect of the story, start with the Wikipedia entry on "Beijing Legation Quarter" and follow links to maps. There is also this Paul French link: http://us.midnightinpeking.com/pdf/a-...

Breaking news, Midnight in Peking Walking Tour! http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/play/ha...

When can I go???!

I could go on and on because I found this book utterly fascinating. The murder mystery was only one part of its appeal, for this reader.



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