Peter May: The Killing Room

By MICHELE HEWITSON

East meets West in Shanghai murder mystery. American pathologist Margaret Campbell is having an affair with Beijing detective, Li Yan.

They're both seconded to Shanghai, a city uncomfortably coming to terms with economic revolution, to investigate what happened to 18 women found in a mass grave on a building site.

Somebody has already performed autopsies on the bodies, possibly while they were still alive. May uses the backdrop of a city where you turn a corner to find the Shanghai People's Hero Memorial Pagoda and around the next discover the Jurassic Pub to underscore the cultural friction between Margaret and Li.

They seem to have made so little headway on the culture thing - they exist in a state of irritated frustration with each other - that you wonder how they fell in love. Still, it's a satisfying yarn with a great backdrop.

Hodder Moa Beckett

$19.95