The Chinaman

Stephen Leather

Praise for Stephen Leather’s bestselling thrillers

‘Raw and uncompromising, this is a compelling and disturbing thriller that will make you think’

Sunday Mercury, Birmingham on The Eyewitness

‘Stephen Leather’s novel manages to put a contemporary spin on a timeless tale of revenge and retribution . . . Leather’s experience as a journalist brings a sturdy, gritty element to a tale of horror . . . which makes The Eyewitness a compelling read’

Evening Herald, Dublin

‘Exciting stuff with plenty of heart-palpitating action gingered up by mystery and intrigue . . . Leather is an intelligent thriller writer’

Daily Mail on The Tunnel Rats

‘As high-tech and as world-class as the thriller genre gets’

Express on Sunday on The Bombmaker

‘A whirlwind of action, suspense and vivid excitement’

Irish Times on The Birthday Girl

‘An ingenious plot, plenty of action and solid, believable characters, wrapped up in taut, snappy prose that grabs your attention by the throat . . . A top-notch thriller which whips the reader along at breakneck speed’

Yorkshire Post on The Long Shot

‘A gripping story sped along by admirable uncluttered prose’

Daily Telegraph on The Chinaman

Also by Stephen Leather

Pay Off

The Fireman

Hungry Ghost

The Vets

The Long Shot

The Birthday Girl

The Double Tap

The Solitary Man

The Tunnel Rats

The Bombmaker

The Stretch

Tango One

The Eyewitness

Spider Shepherd Thrillers

Hard Landing

Soft Target

Cold Kill

Hot Blood

Dead Men

Live Fire

Rough Justice

Fair Game (July 2011)

Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thrillers

Nightfall

Midnight

To find out about these and future titles, visit www.stephenleather.com.

About the author

Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages, and The Stretch and The Bombmaker have been filmed for television. Stephen Leather now lives in Dublin.
Visit his website at www.stephenleather.com

THE CHINAMAN

Stephen Leather

HODDER & STOUGHTON

The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN 978 1 844 56862 8
Book ISBN 978 0340 58025 7