![]() Without being overdone, they are w ell placed and lend the book authenticity. “amah,” “number one boy”) and Mandarin phrases. ![]() I appreciated his use of expatriate jargon (e.g. While he does stay true to historical facts, French does take liberty with the thoughts and perspective of the characters, giving the book somewhat of a fictional flavor. Oddly, the body has been drained of blood and her heart is missing.įrom this spot where the body is discovered, French pulls you slowly, deeper and deeper, into the inner life of Beijing: the ways and customs of the Chinese, the secret lives of its British residents, and the politics that shape its fate. I borrowed this book from my local library because it was shelved as “history.” In less than twenty pages, after line upon line of descriptive adjectives for a corpse covered in stab wounds, I realized I was reading my first true crime.Īuthor Paul French wastes no time setting the stage: One winter morning in 1937 the body of a young girl is found at the foot of Beijing’s Fox Tower. I have had no interest in the genre even after learning that it has a large readership-people with a vicarious disposition to relive crime in the extreme details usually relegated to fiction. ![]() Until I met my husband I didn’t know that True Crime was worthy of a Dewey Decimal classification. ![]()
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