Some books falter when they 'solve' a cold case (the otherwise admirable The Suspicions of Mr. That is when Pamela's father initiates his own, obsessive investigation, hiring Chinese detectives and bombarding the recalcitrant Foreign Office in London with memos. This makes for fairly interesting reading until the book's final 75 pages. Two detectives, Colonel Han and the Scotland Yard-trained Richard Dennis, paired to take the case, interrogating rickshaw drivers, her school friends, and, eventually, a bizarre cabal of men interested in the uncommon joint pursuits of nudism and hunting. Pamela's murder forced these adjacent but unmixed worlds together. What makes this one's tale worth telling, as Paul French does with a police procedural's efficiency in Midnight in Peking, is the songbird, that essential dose of cultural strangeness that can lift narratives of murder above the plainspoken fray of the true- crime genre.įrench's setting is the Legation Quarter, a walled and gated scrap of Peking where between the wars a few thousand Westerners lived as they would have back home, surrounded by bars, department stores and cinemas - almost in a mirrored version of the Forbidden City. Her father, a distinguished diplomat and scholar of Chinese dialects, had been searching for her with increasing alarm since she failed to return from ice skating with a friend the evening before.īodies fall every day. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in Sydney the dialogue with Australia’s major trading partner was welcome.On a cold Peking morning in 1937, a man named Chang Pao-chen was taking his caged songbird for a walk when he discovered the mutilated body of a 19-year old British girl. “Nothing’s going to do more to achieve peace in our region than strong trading relationships between Australia and China,” he said.Īustralia paused its World Trade Organisation dispute against China’s punitive tariffs on barley, in what the government called a sign of goodwill, as Beijing agreed to expedite its review of the imposition.

The trade minister said a stable relationship, including through trade, between Canberra and Beijing would also boost the prospect of regional peace. The opulent 15th century palace is a World Heritage site and a source of immense national pride.Īustralian officials said the tour was a “welcome development”, after earlier playing down expectations for the afternoon’s formal talks aimed at resolving Chinese trade bans on Australian products.

On Friday, the minister was given a surprise tour of Beijing’s Forbidden City by senior Chinese commerce ministry official, Peng Wei. There’s no better way to progress that dialogue than face-to-face meetings,” he said upon arrival. “We’re here to continue the process of stabilising our trading relationship.

Midnight in peking book