This is a superb new telling of a fascinating tale. Even if you have never been to China and know little of its politics, it makes for riveting reading. The tale's slow ending is marked by the murder in 2011 of a British businessman. Was he a spy? Was he working for the British government? Was he a mere chancer, a typical character straight out of a John Le Carre novel? We still don't know. Why did the police chief of one of the China's largest and most wealthy cities disguise himself as an old woman and drive at speed to the nearest US Consulate 320 kms away? That we now know, but it would give the game away to reveal it here!
It's penultimate endgame leads to Xi Jinping ascending to the Presidency of China, perhaps in place of a man now rotting in jail. No-one knows how the real endgame will play out, for the spoiled brat that is the jailed politician's son remains a free man in the west. Used to getting his own way, he moodily passes the time amongst his family's immense riches. Plotting revenge and his own entry into Chinese politics? No-one knows!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... ucky_hotelThere are no heroes in it, only villains and victims. And it's a descent into the dark heart of Chinese elite politics... which is dangerous. Most people who know the story from the inside are dead, in jail or unwilling to talk.