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  • Published: 27 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9780241965979
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $19.99

Midnight in Peking

The Murder That Haunted the Last Days of Old China




A father hunts for his daughter's killer in pre-war Peking - a gripping true murder mystery story

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Paul French's Midnight in Peking, a gripping, true murder mystery story read by the actor Crawford Logan.

Who killed Pamela Werner?

On a frozen night in January 1937, in the dying days of colonial Peking, a body was found under the haunted watchtower. It was Pamela Werner, the teenage daughter of the city's former British consul Edward Werner. Her heart had been removed.

A horrified world followed the hunt for Pamela's killer, with a Chinese-British detective team pursuing suspects including a blood-soaked rickshaw puller, the Triads, and a lascivious grammar school headmaster. But the case was soon forgotten amid the carnage of the Japanese invasion... by all but Edward Werner. With a network of private investigators and informers, he followed the trail deep into Peking's notorious Badlands and back to the gilded hotels of the colonial Quarter.

Some 75 years later, deep in the Scotland Yard archives, British historian Paul French accidentally came across the lost case file prepared by Edward Werner. Unveiling an undercover sex cult, heroin addicts and disappearing brothels, the truth behind the crime can now be told - and is more disturbing than anyone could imagine.

Not just the unputdownable story of a savage murder, Midnight in Peking is a sweepingly evocative account of the end of an era.

  • Published: 27 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9780241965979
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $19.99

About the author

Paul French

Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. He is a widely published analyst and commentator on China and has written a number of books, including a history of foreign correspondents in China and a biography of the legendary Shanghai adman, journalist and adventurer Carl Crow.

His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4
Book of the Week, and will be made into an international miniseries by Kudos Film and Television, the UK creators of Spooks and Life on Mars.

Also by Paul French

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Praise for Midnight in Peking

An instant true crime classic. Grips from the first page to the last

David Peace, author of Red Riding and The Damned United

Fascinating and irresistible. I couldn't put it down

John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Written in the style of a gripping murder mystery, but all the facts are true

Kirsty Lang, BBC Radio 4 (Book of the Week)

Engrossing true crime whodunnit... A terrific read

Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times

Not only does Mr French succeed in solving the crime, he resurrects a period that was filled with glitter as well as evil

The Economist

French has an easygoing prose style... well chosen quotes bring a new vigour and crispness... [He] succeeds in giving voice to a tragic quest for justice

Sunday Telegraph

It is the storytelling flair that marks Midnight in Peking so highly above the run-of-the-mill true crime stories: with its false leads and twists, it sucks the reader in like the best fiction

The Scotsman

The shocking true tale, combined with prose you can't drag yourself away from, makes Midnight in Peking a work of non fiction as compulsive as any bestselling crime novel. It also brings justice at last for a young woman whose murder nearly went unsolved

Sunday Express

Terrific, engrossing ... a gruesome tale of a hitherto forgotten case, and of the sheer tenacity of a grieving father

Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller

Awards & recognition

Australian Book Industry Awards

Winner  •  2012  •  International Success of the Year

CWA Dagger Awards

Winner  •  2013  •  Non-Fiction

Edgar Award (Mystery Writers US)

Winner  •  2013  •  Best Fact Crime

Macavity Award (US)

Nominated  •  2013  •  Best Mystery Non-Fiction

Discover more

Video
City of Devils by Paul French

A spellbinding and dramatic account of Shanghai's lawless 1930s and two of its most notorious criminals, by the author of the prize winning MIDNIGHT IN PEKING. Learn more - https://www.penguin.com.au/books/city-of-devils-a-shanghai-noir-9780143790570