Emperors Once More

From the author of All the Flowers in Shanghai ("strong on detail and emotional intensity"-Kirkus Reviews), Duncan Jepson, comes a new crime thriller that captures the sights and sounds of Hong Kong and propels the reader into a world of international financial intrigue.

Senior Inspector Alex Soong of the Hong Kong police is a contradictory character: a student of traditional martial arts and Chinese history, he drives an imported Mustang, loves American jazz, and is married to a beautiful, high-maintenance wife, Jun, who cannot understand why he doesn't take a more highly paid and prestigious job.

On the same day as he is drafted in to help Inspector Mike De Suza with the investigation of the motiveless murder of two Chinese Methodists in the financial district, the police are tipped off to an apparently unrelated murder in a deserted Kowloon warehouse: five people dead in a scene of horror which echoes the ritualistic killings of the Boxer Rebellion, a century before. As the first officer on the scene, Alex is shocked to be greeted by the concealed perpetrator, and invited to join him in reasserting China's global supremacy. After dismissing this and a second approach, he recruits historian Professor Elizabeth Yi to help him research the cases' parallels with the Boxer killings.