The Firemaker

Margaret Campbell, a Chicago forensic pathologist, has been invited by the Chinese government to teach at the Beijing police university. She has accepted the six-week assignment with misgivings but is desperate to escape a troubled life in America. Arriving in Beijing, she checks “nothing to declare” on the health declaration they gave her on the plane---nothing, that is, “except a broken heart and a wasted life, neither of which was contagious.”

She gets off to a bad start when her car knocks senior detective Li Yan off his bicycle. In a furious clash, he dresses her down in perfect English. But Li soon finds himself reintroduced to Margaret by his superiors when the newly promoted detective’s first case requires Margaret’s special expertise to identify a horribly burned corpse. Thrown together to track down the killer, Margaret and Li must bury their personal and cultural differences when they uncover a conspiracy that threatens not only their lives, but the lives of millions.

Peter May has been a journalist and is the author of three major television series in Britain, one of them in Gaelic. With an extraordinary network of contacts, he has gained unprecedented access to the homicide and forensic science sections of the Beijing and Shanghai police forces. The Chinese Crime Writers’ Association named May an honorary member of their Beijing chapter, making him the only Westerner to receive this tribute. The Firemaker is the first in his China Thriller series featuring Margaret Campbell and Li Yan. May lives in France.