AustLit

1961. In the drawing room of an imposing Hong Kong residence, a British lord brutally assaults a young Chinese boy. His grandson watches, helpless. But he will never forget.

Wapping, London, present day. It’s a warm spring in the capital, and heroin addict Catherine Berlin feels the clammy breath of the past on her neck. Battling to stay clean, and bearing the scars of her most recent case, she is struggling to outpace her demons.

An old contact has offered her a job investigating a violent attack by a seventeen-year-old public schoolboy, a Chinese orphan on a prestigious scholarship. The victim has gone missing, and the boy’s patron, a shadowy peer, claims the case is being manipulated by the Chinese government. Seduced by the boy’s vulnerability and the peer’s allegations, Berlin journeys to Hong Kong, where she uncovers a conspiracy that reaches from the Pearl River Delta to the Palace of Westminster…

Source: Publisher's Blurb

'A midnight delivery. A sole eyewitness. No loose ends.

'Christmas is looming, and investigator Catherine Berlin is out of a job. Broke, and with a drug habit that's only just under control, she quickly agrees when an old friend offers her work. It's a simple investigation with a generous fee, looking into the dealings of a small-time entrepreneur. The only catch? It's in Russia.

'But when Berlin arrives in Moscow, things are not so straightforward. Shadowy figures stalk her through the frozen streets. She's kicked out of her hotel, her all-important medication confiscated by police. Strung out and alone, Berlin turns to her interpreter, an eccentric Brit named Charlie. But Charlie's past is as murky as Berlin's own, and when the subject of the investigation disappears, Berlin realises Charlie may be part of the web. The only way out is to hunt down the truth, even if it kills her.' (Publication summary)

'Everyone is hooked on something.

'It's not that easy to kick the money habit. After the world meltdown forces London's bankers to go cold turkey, people look elsewhere for a quick quid: the old fashioned East End.

'So when investigator Catherine Berlin gets an anonymous tip-off about a local loan shark, the case seems straightforward - until her informant is found floating in the Limehouse Basin.

'In another part of town, a notorious doctor is murdered in his surgery, and his entire stock of pharmaceutical heroin stolen. An unorthodox copper is assigned to the case, and Berlin finds herself a reluctant collaborator in a murder investigation.

'Now Berlin has seven days to find out who killed her informant, why the police are hounding her and, most urgently of all, where to find a new - and legal - supply of the drug she can't survive without.' (From the publisher's website.)