BooksBarbecue
Back The Firemaker Save as PDF
Chapters (23)
  1. Cover
  2. About Peter May
  3. By Peter May
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. PROLOGUE
  8. CHAPTER ONE
  9. CHAPTER TWO
  10. CHAPTER THREE
  11. CHAPTER FOUR
  12. CHAPTER FIVE
  13. CHAPTER SIX
  14. CHAPTER SEVEN
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. EPILOGUE
  23. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, great swathes of the city were demolished by armies of hammer-wielding workmen, transforming the capital in the space of little more than twelve months into a bustling modern metropolis, with little sign of the history and hutongs that had been so apparent when I first arrived.

Mao suits disappeared, to be replaced by the latest Western fashions. Everyone got mobile phones. Showrooms sprang up everywhere selling Mercedes and BMW. The insidious invasion of foreign culture brought McDonald’s to Beijing street corners and, God forbid, even a Starbucks in the Forbidden City. English was becoming the common currency.

I feel privileged to have experienced Beijing and China as it had once been, and to have borne witness to its metamorphosis. The China Thrillers could hardly have been set at a time of greater change. And so I view the books now almost as modern historical documents. They tell us not only about the evolution in the relationship between Deputy Section Chief Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell, but bear testament to one of the most astonishing cultural transformations in recent history.

An approximate time scale of the series is as follows:

  • The Firemaker—Summer of 1999
  • The Fourth Sacrifice—Summer into autumn of 1999
  • The Killing Room—Winter of 2000
  • Snakehead—Summer of 2001
  • The Runner—Winter of 2003
  • Chinese Whispers—Autumn into winter of 2004

Peter May

Spring 2016

PROLOGUE

The laughter of the children peals through the early morning quiet like bells ringing for the dead. Hair straight, dark and club-cut, bobs above the frilled white and pink of the girls’ blouses as they run along Ritan Park’s dusty paths in the gloomy green Beijing dawn. Their dark oriental eyes burn with the fire of youth. So much life and innocence a breath away from that first encounter with death, and the taint of mortality that will stain their lives for ever.

Their mother had asked the baby-sitter, a dull country girl, to take the twins to the park early, before kindergarten. A treat in the cool of the morning, before the sun would rise and bleach all colour and substance from the day.

An old man in Mao pyjamas and white gloves practises t’ai chi among the trees, slow-motion graceful, arms outstretched, one leg so slowly lifting, exerting a control of his body that he has never had of his life. The girls barely see him, drawn by the strange sounds coming from around the next corner. They run ahead in breathless anticipation, ignoring the calls of the baby-sitter asking them to wait. Past a group of people who stand reading sheets of poetry strung between the trees; past a bench with two grey-haired old ladies in carpet slippers and grey cardigans who shake their heads at such a wanton display of free spirits. Even had they been allowed, in their day bound and bleeding feet would have put a stop to it.