Midnight in Peking

Paul French's Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China (Penguin, 2012) is the darkest sort of crime story: the sort that actually happened. French reconstructs the brutal murder of 20-year-old Pamela Werner, whose mutilated body was found beneath Peking's Fox Tower in January 1937. Using newspaper accounts, police records, autopsy reports, and a large investigative file on the case compiled by Pamela's father, French brings this gruesome tale to light.

In "literary non-fiction" style, French recreates Pamela's last days, and provides background on her family, her neighborhood, and the foreign community in Peking during the last 1930s. He reconstructs the police investigation into her show more death, hampered as it was by "diplomatic" meddling, and, come to find out, severe police corruption and misconduct at several levels. It was left to Pamela's father to follow up leads and try to suss out what actually happened to his daughter, and his version of events has proven credible to French, who uses Werner's reports as the basis for his own narrative of Pamela's death.

A bit hard to read in parts, as French spares none of the gory details - this is decidedly not a book for the squeamish. But it's extremely well written, and a rather amazing story that certainly deserved to be told.

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Midnight in Peking is not your average supermarket/drugstore true crime novel filled with lurid pictures and speculation. This is true crime as vehicle for social history, much like the books TJ English writes so wonderfully well. In the opening of the book, a young woman's body is discovered - she is brutally, terribly, shockingly dead - the victim of unspeakable crime. She is also British. China is hounded by the Japanese, the world is on the brink of its second World War (or World War I - part II, as I like to describe the inevitable sequel), and the story makes headlines.

Mr. French introduces us to the China of the period, but also offers insight into investigative techniques of the time, the way foreigners in Peking fit into the show more city (in their own quarters and without), the nature of diplomatic face saving, and a tantalizing glimpse in the Badlands - that sinful place of crime and debauchery. He details the official investigation (where the crime went cold) and the unofficial investigation run by the victim's father (where the crime was solved). Along the way were diplomats, Chinese students, European wastrels, prostitutes, pimps, petty thieves, rooming house denizens, and everything in-between.

Midnight in Peking is a glimpse under the covers of Peking on its way to radical change as the friction between the old and new rub its edges raw. Ostensibly about the murder of Pamela Werner and her father's fight to find justice for her, the book is at its best where it lingers on the fringes of polite society - jazz, brothels, and opium dens, oh my. I would have liked more social history and less true crime, but overall an enjoyable read and winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Non-Fiction Dagger. show less

Wow! This is a really fascinating, well-told story of a 20-year-old free spirit killed by the worst elements of a 30s Peking expat demimonde as WWII and Japanese invasion looms. Using discovered correspondence, the author is able to tell of the young woman's demise by intelligence gleaned by her adoptive father out-detecting the authorities during the occupation. With opium-taking rickshaw pullers, a hermaphrodite, brothels, rakes, nudists and a roué dentist this has all the makings of an exotic crime noir with the crushing tragedy of it being a true tragedy of Jack The Ripper-like murder happening to an unfortunate ingénue.

This Edgar Award-winning book is an utterly compelling and very disturbing account of the 1937 murder of Pamela Werner, set against the foreboding backdrop of Peking on the cusp of monumental change. Pamela's murder was particularly gruesome, and a tricky thing to investigate: she was an English girl, which required the involvement of the British legation, yet the crime was committed outside the Legation Quarter, which made it within Chinese jurisdiction. The diplomatic maneuvering made investigation very difficult, as did nationalistic face-saving on all sides. The interactions of so many groups of people in a relatively small area: legations of wealthy British, American, French, German, Spanish, and Dutch; along with Japanese military show more and the unease they brought (justifiably, considering the full-scale Japanese assault and occupation of China later that year); desperately impoverished and stateless White Russian exiled from Bolshevik Russia; and the nearby Badlands -- den of opium, heroin, prostitution and other vice -- made this an area of volatility and subterfuge. No one was what they seemed on the surface: not Pamela, not her father, not her friends, not the investigators, no one.

This is a great, if disturbing read. The depth of research is astonishing, yet the book reads like a thriller. The author's skill is impressive, but more impressive is the body of research collected at the time by one key player, especially given the condition and confusion of China in the late 1930s. This is fascinating true history. show less

French pieces together the events of a murder that scandalized Peking on the brink of a full Japanese invasion. Pamela Werner was days away from turning twenty when her body was found at the base of the Fox Tower. Her father, a disgraced and eccentric British man, looked to the joint investigation of Chinese and British officials to bring justice to his only child's death. However, those officials are undermined by various governments and internal political issues and no conclusion was reached. Her heart-broken father continued his own investigation, even after the Japanese took over the city.

French created a masterful work. Not only does he recreate Pamela as a bright young lady who simply wanted to go skating with friends, but he show more also makes Peking a character in its own right. It was a city devastated several times over through the 19th century, and then on the verge of new turmoil, the international quarter continued its decadent ways. It was refuge for White Russians and European Jews and so many struggling Chinese from the countryside. Japanese soldiers and spies were already in the city, though they had not formally occupied it. Everyone knew that was coming. Pamela's death occurred at a terrible time--as if there is any choice time to be murdered--and would have been utterly forgotten if not for French's book. I can see why this won the Edgar Award. show less

Wow! Do not pick this book up until you have a solid stretch of time in which to NOT sleep and NOT go to work. This amazing story hooked me with the lurid murder, but kept my attention by describing the intricate political world of pre-WW II Peking on the eve of its destruction. My heart can't help but feel that the father of the murder victim, being a scholar, knew exactly what he was doing when he recorded his private investigations through official channels. The scholar Werner did not find justice in his lifetime, but--thanks to the efforts of Paul French--at least the story is published for a wider sense of rightness. The best thing I've read all year.

This 8-hour true crime audiobook stayed riveting throughout. The story was an interesting mix of crime, personalities, and Chinese history. The murder occurred in Peking in 1937. The drama thickened during the official investigation by both authorities – the British Legation and the local Chinese detectives -- and intensified as the Japanese soldiers entered the city from Manchuria. The heartbroken father continued to search for answers, and more was revealed.

I enjoy true crime on occasion, but especially if it teaches me something, like history. And this one fit the bill.

Highly recommended for fans of true crime or the history of China in the 1930s on the Eve of World War II.