The Borrowed
About this audiobook
A deductive powerhouse, detective Kwan Chun-dok becomes a legend in the Hong Kong Police Force, nicknamed “the Eye of Heaven” by his awe-struck colleagues. Divided into six sections told in reverse chronological order—each of which covers an important case in Kwan’s career and takes place at a pivotal moment in Hong Kong history—The Borrowed follows Kwan from his experiences during the Leftist riot in 1967, when a bombing plot threatens many lives; the conflict between the Hong Kong police and Independent Commission against Corruption in 1977; and the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 to the Handover in 1997 and the present day of 2013, when Kwan is called on to solve his final case, the murder of a local billionaire. Along the way we meet Communist rioters, ultraviolent gangsters, stallholders at the city’s many covered markets, pop singers enmeshed in the high-stakes machinery of star-making, and a people always caught in the shifting balance of political power, whether in London or Beijing—all coalescing into a dynamic portrait of this fascinating city.
Tracing a broad historical arc, The Borrowed reveals just how closely everything is connected, how history always repeats itself, and how we have come full circle to repeat the political upheaval and societal unrest of the past. It is a gripping, brilliantly constructed novel from a talented new voice.
About the author
Chan Ho-Kei was born and raised in Hong Kong. He has worked as a software engineer, a scriptwriter, a game designer, and an editor of comic magazines. His writing career started with the short story “The Murder Case of Jack and the Beanstalk,” which was short-listed for the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award. He won the award the next year with “The Locked Room of Bluebeard.” His first novel, The Man Who Sold the World, won the Soji Shimada Mystery Award, the biggest mystery award in the Chinese-speaking world, and was published in five languages.
Jeremy Tiang is a Singaporean writer, translator, and playwright based in New York City. He has translated more than ten books from Chinese and was recently honored as the London Book Fair's inaugural Translator in Residence.
P. J. Ochlan is an actor and voiceover artist who has narrated hundreds of audiobooks and is the recipient of an Audie Award and several AudioFile Earphones Awards.
