His father was a close school friend of my father when they were both boys in Poland.
My interest in this book derives from once knowing Michael HorJelski, and hearing of the murder of his girl friend from him in l938 or '39, when he looked me up in New York City.He was, understandably, quite disturbed by this unsolved murder and I never forgot his story. Have you listened to any of Erik Singer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?ĭid you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry? He vividly conveys the atmosphere of old China, is complexity and its many layers of superstition, rumor and European snobbishness. The author, because he was determined to unearth all the f acts and follow up all the forgotten or neglected old leads in hopes of solving the case so many years later.
Would you consider the audio edition of Midnight in Peking to be better than the print version?Ĭan't say definitively-haven't seen the print edition, but based on the intricacies of the true story, I think the audible version may be better because the reader has made the details lively, where in print they might just appear as a paghe full of names dates and numbers. But the research, and the facts themselves are, on their own, enough to capture the imagination. The problem with the historical narration is that the author is extremely distant to what is happening and most of the psychological angle is entirely lost. To be honest, I would have preferred that the dramatization be more novel-like and the style can get dry and boring at times.
The facts themselves seemed to have been drawn from the imagination of a fiction novelist but they are all true, but, at the same time, the book reads like a history book without any of the experiential narration that comes with novels. In an unusual way of narration, the book meticulously progresses from the facts of the investigation, through the various players that participate to it and the facts that they uncover. It starts as a detailed historical description of Peking just before WWII and then begins focusing on the more specific event of the ferocious murder of a young white woman, of the likes history has never seen before.
This book is the bizarre child of a history textbook and a police thriller. When history can be stranger than fiction
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