
Unraveling the Mysteries of Beijing’s Past
Best-selling author Paul French takes us on a journey to the past in forward-looking Beijing.
One of the world’s ancient capitals, Beijing has earned a reputation of late for its futuristic architecture. Still, vestiges of the city’s tumultuous past remain, if you know where to look. A Londoner who’s made China his home for nearly two decades, writer Paul French is a seasoned wanderer of Beijing’s hutong alleyways and hidden nooks. When he stumbled across the story of a grisly Beijing murder from 1937, he reinvestigated the unsolved case, using it as the back story for his 2011 New York Times Bestseller novel Midnight in Peking (a miniseries based on the book is in the works at Britain’sKudos Films).
Here, he reveals his favorite historic corners of the capital, where the chimes of Old Peking still echo today.
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