Midnight in Peking (2012) (edit title/settings)

Characters/People edit see section history

• Chang Pao-chen: Was out walking his songbird one morning when he found something horrible in a ditch
• Col. Han Shih-ching: Chief investigator on this case
• Cpl. Kao Tao-hung: First responder at the crime scene
• DCI Dick Dennis: A Scotland-Yard-trained detective called in from nearby Tientsin to assist in the investigation
• Wentworth B. Prentice: A dentist living it up in Peking, with his own nudist colony, in the wake of his wife and children having moved back to England
• Sir Archibald Clark Kerr: British ambassador to China at the time this story was unfolding
• Mischa Horjelsky: A star athlete at a well-regarded private school in Tientsin
• Sydney Yeates: Mischa's headmaster
• Pamela Werner: A very independent young adult preparing to move from her native Peking to England, as war was approaching
• Gladys Nina Ravenshaw Werner: Pamela's adoptive mother, who passed away years before this story began
• E.T.C. Werner: Pamela's adoptive father, retired British Consul to China and a noted Sinologist
• John O'Brian: Described in this story as half-Chinese and half-Portugese, and a suitor of Pamela's of whom her father utterly disapproved
• Wang Kemin: After investigating the case described in this book, Han was assigned to investigate the assassination of this man, a pro-Japan president of China
• Joe Knauf: A close friend and frequent associate of Dr. Prentice
• Thomas Jack: Known as Jack, he took this name to hide his Italian ancestry before joining the US military where he was living in the time, in China
• Han Shou-ching: Another unsuitable fridn of Pamela's in her father's eyes. He once broke the young man's nose to make him leave her alone -- but he didn't stay away
• Dr. Capuzzo: Hunted with Joe Knauf
• Pinfold: Maybe American British or Canadian -- nobody seemed to be quite sure
• Alexander Mikhailovitch Sosnitsky: aka Ivan, aka Vania, aka Vanushka, aka Shura, aka Giraldi
• Mr. Dolbetchef: Dedicated to bringing down the Communists in Russia, he was a helpful informant in this case
• Hisanga Shimadzu: Made an unexpected offer to help in the investigation
• Tai Li: Leader of the Blue Shirts
• Madam Leschinsky: Half-Russian, half-Korean, but 100% uncooperative
• Michael Consiglio: May or may not have been Madam Leschinsky's husband; he was himself half-Italian, half-Filipino, but American by nationality
• Allan Archer: Entered the diplomatic service through his connections after failing the entrance exams
• George Gorman: A pro-Tokyo advocate living in Peking at the time of the Japanese invasion of Nanking
• Ethel Gurevitch: A dental patient of Dr. Prentice who lived close to the Werners; she was a member of a stateless White Russian family
• Helen Foster Snow: Haunted all her life by the possibility that the murderer may have meant to kill her, instead choosing someone who superficially resembled her due to the darkness
• Edgar Snow: Helen's rather abrasive husband; like her he was a left-leaning journalist. He is the person who first introduced Mao Tse-tung to the West
• Brana Shazker: A rather defensive brothel owner with outlets in Peking and Tientsin
• Chen Ching-chun: Working as a cook at what may have been the scene of the murder
• Chiang Kai-shek: Struggling, as this story unfolded, to keep a foothold in the Kuomintang
• Professor Cheng: Grappled to make sense of what he found at the victim's autopsy
• Dr. William Graham Apsland: Consulted at the autopsy
• Superintendent Wang: Passed on critical crime-scene information to the doctors performing the autopsy

Quotes edit see section history

• “Nothing doing! Shirking or slinking away is not my idea of how to solve the mystery of the brutal murder of a weak child.”

  E.T.C. Werner

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Peking: Where most of this story takes place
• Tientsin Grammar School: A day and boarding school run along strictly English lines, where the children of well-off foreigners were schooled in Tientsin
• Badlands: An area of brothels, gambling dens and opium parlours where, as the name implied, bad things happened quite often
• Armour Factory Alley: Where much of the story in this book took place
• Chuanpan Hutong: A narrow street filled with rickety one-story buildings, inhabited by questionable people
• Tartar City: A part of old Peking that is strikingly unlike the main part of the city; ETC Werner loved to spend time here, talking to the locals and sampling their wares
• Nanking: The new seat of the Chinese government at one point in this story
• Manchuria: The bitterly cold northern province of China controlled by the Manchu family

Organizations edit see section history

• The Blue Shirts: A militaristic group, one of the many trying to take over power in China at the time this story was unfolding
• Kuomintang: The government attempting to wipe out both the ancient Chinese warlord-based system of government and the newly-troublesome Communist Partty
• Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists: Better known simply as the Boxers, they kept all foreigners in China in terror for a period of months during thre Boxer Rebeliion
• The British Legation: Prime movers in this story, they alternately demanded and blocked progress on this investigation
• Kokuryukai: aka the Black Dragon Society, a Japanese ultranationalist group

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Guang-hou: Pack of wild dogs

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Paul French (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 364

Notes for Parents edit see section history

This is at once too grisly and too scholarly & historical for most younger readers.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › History › Asia › China
• Books › Nonfiction › True Accounts › Murder & Mayhem
• Books › History › World

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history