China Thrillers

3 primary works • 7 total works

The Firemaker

by Peter May

Published 6 May 1999

Margaret Campbell is a forensic pathologist from Chicago. Li Yan is a Beijing detective with a horribly burned corpse on his hands. She has a broken life behind her, a lonely future dedicated to her profession in front. He has survived two decades of violent change by marrying himself to a career which now promises, at last, to bring him the respected place in Chinese society that his family lost in the Cultural Revolution. Neither of them is ready for the consequences of asking the wrong questions about the dead man - the ones that lead to the terrifying truth.

The Fourth Sacrifice

by Peter May

Published 6 January 2000

Li Yan and Margaret Campbell, Chinese policeman and Chicago pathologist heroes of THE FIREMAKER, meet again when Margaret s unique skills are required once more to investigate a series of ritual executions in Beijing. The first three victims were drugged, tied, labelled with a single word and a single number - then expertly beheaded. The fourth victim was dispatched in just the same way but unlike the others he was an American diplomat. Compelled to work with one another, Margaret Campbell and Li Yan again feel the overwhelming attraction that nearly destroyed them both when they first met. But now Margaret has another admirer - a brilliant, charismatic American TV archaeologist. And Li has a family tragedy that demands all his heart. Slowly they tease out the killer s secrets. But the closer they come to the truth behind the executions, the more dangerously close they come to a killer who is prepared to sacrifice anyone to conceal it.

Chinese Whispers

by Peter May

Published 5 January 2004

He calls himself the Beijing Ripper. His victims are young, beautiful and viciously mutilated. Li Yan, the head of Beijing's serious crime squad has been put in the spotlight. His bosses, the media, and the terror-stricken public are demanding a fast result. When American pathologist Margaret Campbell is invited to perform the autopsy on one of the victims her results send shockwaves through the investigation. Then Li begins receiving personal letters from the killer, and his life and career start falling apart. The need to uncover the Ripper's identity becomes paramount if he is to save himself and his family from ruin.

The Killing Room

by Peter May

Published 4 January 2001

When the mutilated and dismembered bodies of 18 women are discovered in Shanghai, Detective Li Yan is sent to establish if the corpses relate to an unsolved murder in Beijing. What she finds is the most horrifying catalogue of killings ever uncovered.

Snakehead

by Peter May

Published 5 February 2002

Beijing detective Li Yan, now based at the Chinese embassy in Washington, is dispatched to find out how his fellow countrymen suffocated in a sealed refrigeration unit in southern Texas - only to find himself face to face with the woman who walked out of China, and his life, to return to the U.S. Tasked to work together again to find out who is behind the 100-million-dollar trade in illegal Chinese immigrants which led to the tragedy in Texas, they discover that the immigrants were unwitting carriers of a deadly cargo. Still wrestling with the demons of their past, Li and Margaret find themselves racing against time to defuse a biological time-bomb that threatens to wipe out not only their future, but that of humankind.

The ghost marriage

by Peter May

Published 23 June 2010

LI YAN AND MARGARET CAMPBELL RETURN IN A NEW SHORT STORY, YEARS AFTER THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION OF CHINESE WHISPERS.

'I saw your missing girl at a ghost wedding last week. She was the bride.'

It has been a whirlwind few years for Li Yan and Margaret Campbell. Nowadays, both are busy juggling their huge professional workloads - Li as the newly promoted chief of Beijing's serious crime squad, and Campbell as lecturer at the University of Public Security - with the day-to-day raising of their young son, Li Jon.

When a desperate mother appeals to Campbell's own maternal instincts, Li agrees to look into the disappearance of a 17-year-old Beijing girl, Jiang Meilin.

Yet Li's investigation soon turns from a favour into a full-scale murder enquiry. And when he receives an anonymous note he learns Jiang Meilin's death is tied to a dangerous underground trade, and a dark marital rite from China's past.

The Runner

by Peter May

Published 31 December 1999

A top Chinese swimmer kills himself on the eve of an international event - shattering his country's hopes of victory against the Americans. An Olympic weightlifter dies in the arms of his Beijing mistress - a scandal to be hushed up at the highest level. But the suicide was murder, and both men's deaths are connected to an inexplicable series of "accidents" which has taken the lives of some of China's best athletes. Li finds himself in charge of what could be his last investigation for the Beijing police. Hampered by uncooperative officials, dogged by a vindictive rival for his job, his only hope of a breakthrough is a champion runner, the sole member of the Chinese athletics team who seems willing to talk. But she will only talk to Margaret Campbell - and now the runner has disappeared. As Li's enemies take their chance to destroy his career, and shadowy figures seem hell-bent on victory at any cost, finding the missing runner seems to be the only way to save his job, his relationship with Margaret and the lives of more young athletes.