The Ghost Marriage
A China Novella
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The Ghost Marriage
Narrated by:
Peter Forbes
Buy Now for £4.99
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Narrated by:
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Peter Forbes
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By:
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Peter May
About this listen
Li Yan and Margaret Campbell return in a new 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.
©2017 Peter May (P)2017 Quercus Editions LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Excellent short story.
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too short
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Very short
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Any additional comments?
This short novella is a new follow-up to Peter May's China Thrillers. This was the series that originally turned me into a May fan, long before the Lewis trilogy made him a major star in the firmament of crime fiction. So it was a pleasure to revisit Margaret, the American forensic pathologist, and her Chinese partner, Li Yan of the Beijing police.Margaret and Li Yan are still living together, now with the addition of their young son, when Margaret is approached by an elderly woman who tells her that her granddaughter has gone missing, and begs Margaret to use her influence with Li Yan to get him to investigate. As Li Yan gradually finds out what happened to the girl, the story takes us into a mysterious and macabre aspect of Chinese tradition, and into the secrets and lies that can exist in families.
Because the story is so short, I won't say any more about the plot for fear of spoiling it. What has always attracted me most to May's writing is that he chooses interesting settings for his crimes and his impeccable research allows him to create a great sense of place. This was always particularly true of the China thrillers, especially since he began the series way back when the idea of visiting China still seemed like an exotic dream for most of us. The length of this one doesn't allow for much description of Beijing itself, but the plot gives an insight into some of the strange superstitions and rituals that still exist in the country, while also touching on some of the issues thrown up by China's long-standing but now abandoned one-child policy.
With Margaret being a pathologist, the China thrillers also contained some rather gruesome autopsy scenes, and that tradition continues in this one. There isn't room for a huge amount of detection – really we just see the story unfold along with Li Yan as he gradually uncovers the truth. I enjoyed it as a way to catch up with two characters who feel like old friends, but I think it would work equally well as a brief introduction to the style of the series for people who haven't tried it yet. There was never much doubt that Margaret and Li Yan would stay together as a couple so although this takes place after the other books, it's otherwise spoiler free.
I listened to the Audible audiobook version, narrated by Peter Forbes who, I believe, has been the narrator for May's books for a long time now. I thought his narration was very good – I have no way of knowing whether his pronunciations of Chinese words and names is accurate, but I certainly found them convincing. The decision to give the Chinese characters Chinese accents didn't really work for me, I admit – I feel that if characters are supposed to be speaking their own language, then they shouldn't be made to sound 'foreign'. I listened to a Maigret novel immediately following this, where the narrator gave all the French characters English accents appropriate to their class and position in society, and I must say that felt much more natural and authentic. However, it's a debatable point, and some people may prefer the 'foreign'-sounding accents.
Overall, a short but enjoyable return to the world of Beijing. I'm now wondering whether this is a kind of coda to the series, or whether it's to whet our appetites for a future new novel? I hope it's the latter...
NB This audiobook was provided for review by Audible UK via MidasPR.
Take this woman...
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Having read the other books in the series this was a disappointing end. I wouldn't recommend it. There's no closure to the rest of the series.
Disappointing
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