The Hungry Ghost Murder

by Chris West

‘A wonderfully descriptive tale, which evokes a convincing picture of everyday life in the new China. It is also a very good traditional mystery.’ Deadly Pleasures Rural China, 1995. Inspector Bao Zheng takes his new wife, city-born Rosina Lin, to the remote village where he grew up and where his troubled elder brother still lives. He is worried she might find the place crude and dirty – but this soon becomes the least of his concerns. The local Party Secretary is bludgeoned to death with a bust of Karl Marx. The police are baffled and Bao is drawn into the investigation. He soon begins to uncover corruption and bitter conflict beneath the quiet surface of rural life, and then to suspect that the answer to the mystery may lie deeper in the past, in a story that touches on both his own life and that of his brother. When the local police arrest a clearly innocent young man and force a confession out of him, Bao has to act fast – but can he do so, given what the emerging truth is revealing about his own past and very identity? Chris West is a British writer. He works in a range of business, psychology, history and crime / general fiction. His China Quartet, four mysteries written in the 1990s, were among the first crime novels to be set in the contemporary People's Republic of China. Praise for the Inspector Bao Zheng ‘Does for China what Gorky Park did for Russia.’ OLINE COGDILL, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel ‘Few authors since Robert van Gulik have been able to create such a wonderful picture of Chinese society.’ IRA ASHCROFT, Mystery Review ‘A perfect melding of character, plot and atmosphere. My number one read for the year.’ G. MIKI HAYDEN, Mid-West Review ‘Not only an ingenious whodunit, but an inquest into the Cultural Revolution and the violence it did a generation. Skilfully assembled, with people and places vividly rendered, and with history speeding through the narrative like adrenalin.’ PHILIP OAKES, Literary Review ‘A delightful police procedural that deserves wide readership. The investigative storyline is entertaining and the glimpse into Chinese society extremely interesting. But what truly places the novel at the top of the sub-genre is the Inspector himself.’ HARRIET KLAUSNER, The Strand Magazine

193 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 5, 2021

About the author

I grew up in a country village north of London. As a boy I filled endless notebooks with stories - not all of them finished! As a young man I played in various (unsuccessful) bands, then worked in the City of London. I studied philosophy and economics as a 'mature' student (though I wasn't very mature). After leaving uni I went backpacking in China, and wrote a book about that adventure which came out in 1991. Since then, writing has (along with family) been at the heart of my life, though I've had other jobs, too, largely in Marketing and PR, working with small businesses. In 2008, I found an old stamp album in the attic of my parents' old house, and became fascinated by the contents and the way they seemed to mirror history. Each stamp was a tiny, rectangular time machine! In the end, I had to write a book along these lines: A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps was the result. I have now done the same for the USA - a fascinating journey into American history (and a great pleasure to collect the nation's stamps). I live in North Hertfordshire with my wife and daughter.

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