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  • Published: 20 October 2019
  • ISBN: 9781760145200
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 340

The Witchhunters

Scandal, Secrets, and a Death That Shocked Hong Kong



For decades, many people have suspected that the young officer died because of information he possessed. This book reveals for the first time what MacLennan knew.

Hong Kong, 1980.

A British police officer minutes away from being arrested by colleagues for sex crimes is found dead in his locked bedroom. There are multiple wounds to his chest; his used service revolver by his side. There's only one possible conclusion: suicide.

Yet a painstaking reinvestigation of this alleged suicide uncovers a different story: one involving a secret paedophile ring servicing the city's most powerful men, high-level cover-ups, international geopolitics and the involvement of a secretive unit of police officers tasked with tracking down and arresting homosexuals – the Witchhunters.

Their aim was to eradicate all traces of organised crime within homosexual circles and procurement of youths. The operation ultimately resulted in the tragic death of police inspector John MacLennan - a watershed moment leading to the eventual decriminalisation of homosexual acts in Hong Kong in 1991.

For decades, many people have suspected that the young officer died because of information he possessed. This book reveals for the first time what MacLennan knew.

  • Published: 20 October 2019
  • ISBN: 9781760145200
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 340

Praise for The Witchhunters

The Witchhunters grips from page one - a startling true crime exposé of the sordid underbelly of 1970s Hong Kong - sex, vice and police corruption intertwine to trap the innocent and protect the guilty

Paul French, bestselling author of Midnight in Peking and City of Devils