Sex, drugs, gambling, ghosts, drinking, rugby - and even some police work. Hong Kong on the edge of empire was teeming with triads, smugglers, Chinese immigrants and Vietnamese refugees. Simon's memoir of his time in the Hong Kong police - from the 1970s until after the handover - is a fast-paced tale. From the murky back streets of Kowloon to the open seas, his shocking and hilarious story shows what life was like on the Hong Kong beat.

Fighting to survive on a patrol launch during a typhoon. Investigating a murder by a Vietnamese gangster in a refugee camp. Battling riots during the Cultural Revolution, countering drug smuggling by the triads, and dealing with bank robbers. These are some of the stories told in this compilation of experiences from 50 former Royal Hong Kong Police officers.

Hong Kong in 1970 was the fastest expanding city in the world, a city that lived on three levels - the expatriates, nearly always British who lived in almost complete isolation; the vast mass of Chinese residents struggling to get by and improve their lot; and finally the criminal and corrupt underside which not only fought among itself but also affected the life of everyone else in the Crown Colony through fear and corruption. Fighting to hold this in check - and by and large succeeding - were the Hong Kong police force. At the officer level, many were British. Into this heady and dangerous mix steps a young Merseyside policeman, Chris Emmett. His account of those times brings vividly to life the crime, prostitution, drugs, triad street gangs and corruption that was an important part of the fabric of Hong Kong of those days.

British and Chinese cultures collide in a deadly serious but often hilarious novel about an American ex-seaman and tavern owner, living in Hong Kong in 1857, who is framed for murder by a beautiful Englishwoman.

This is a factual account of the life of an expat Officer in the Royal Hong Kong Police who helped to maintain law and order in the thriving Crown Colony prior to Chinese rule, an era of endemic corruption which resulted in the near mutiny of a 20,000 strong force. The author, pseudonym Jack Humphreys, served as a Bomban, an Inspector of Police, during this critical period of British history. He describes his experiences walking the Hong Kong beat, confronting illegal immigration, leading an SAS-trained anti-terrorist team, setting up a covert Operations Unit of the Criminal Intelligence Bureau and then commanding a Regional Intelligence Unit, in a 20,000 strong force with around 600 expatriate officers. On Christmas Day 1978 Jack and his anti-terrorist team were featured on international television as they landed from an RAF helicopter on the Vietnamese refugee freighter "Huey Fong" to safely extract a Police Tactical Unit platoon delayed on board for over 24 hours. The Yorkshireman was never far from dispute and controversy, being scapegoated into military and police disciplinary tribunals, and courageously sticking by an SAS colleague prosecuted for Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm and Possession of an Offensive Weapon. On conviction the soldier received six strokes of the cane at Stanley Prison before release and repatriation to the UK. That soldier was Pete Winner, author of the international best-seller "Soldier I, An SAS Hero". Jack supported Pete throughout the trial, helping him retain his military career and eventually return to the SAS Regiment where he engaged in the Iranian Embassy Siege and the Falklands War. He returned to uniform for two years and during periods of exceptional success against narcotics trafficking received threats from shadowy triad and police figures suggestive of corruption within the British administrative �lite. After serving a further two years with the Special Duties Unit Jack transferred to command the covert Operations Unit of the Criminal Intelligence Bureau as a Detective Chief Inspector, countering 'Big Circle' gangs from Mainland China and arresting high-ranking triad officials before moving to develop a Regional Intelligence Unit in the New Territories.

Hong Kong's film industry gained global attention in the 1980s, at the time of negotiations over Great Britain's return of the colony to China. Uncertainty about the post-handover era accelerated Hong Kong's race for economic growth, and found expression in cinema's depictions of a 'city on fire.' In this accessible introduction to the extraordinary cinematic output of the colony, Michael Hoover and Lisa Stokes review the directors and films that have established Hong Kong cinema internationally: John Woo's martial arts flicks, Tsui Hark's wire-worked fantasies, Ann Hui's exile melodramas, Stanley Kwan's limpid romances, and Wong Kar-wai's stylish art films.

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction Winner of the Gotham Book Prize One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year" Oprah's Book Club Pick Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine A Washington Post Notable Novel From the author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride’s funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion. Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.