(*Modern-day Beijing, obviously – will refer to Peking throughout below as that is what is referenced in the stories. How about: an 80-year-old unsolved murder, allegations of sex trafficking, raunchy parties in brothels, seedy and eccentric expats, a nudist colony in the hills outside the city, White Russian prostitutes, booze and drugs, gambling, indifferent British colonial authorities, rumours of a cover up, internment camps, the father of the victim being incarcerated with one of the prime suspects, the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the involvement of the Kempeitai (the Japanese military police), and … a 19-year old British girl found dead and mutilated at the foot of a haunted tower in Peking*.

Alongside the English language materials that are used in Paul French’s international bestseller Midnight In Peking and the newly published A Death in Peking by Graeme Sheppard, we have been able to dig up Chinese written police reports and articles to provide new insights into this notable incident.This baroque murder mystery has so much going on that it’s difficult to know where to start & what to include. Our project has from the get go sought to bring Chinese sources into the research into the murder. Pamela Werner’s death exposed the workings of this very fragile society. The Japanese were coming ever closer, and the capital had been moved to Nanjing. The bubble where, in the words of Edgar Snow, Americans and Europeans had their own little “Never Never Land” in Beijing was about to burst.

Pamela Werner died at a time when most Westerners in China had lost their extraterritoriality. You could say that Beijing Postcards cares less about who actually killed Pamela Werner than exploring the society she lived in. It captivates people and gives the narrative a clear direction, whilst also revealing much about the world in which the crime took place. The Pamela Werner murder case is no exception.Įxamining a murder investigation is an amazing driver for exploring the past. Suddenly a sharp light is directed against small details, habits and routines, providing you with information that is often difficult to obtain from other historical archives. Undertaking a police investigation is also a kind of historical research. The murder was never solved and all but forgotten till Paul French opened a box of archival material at the Kew archives in England. On Januthe body of a young foreign girl was found brutally mutilated at the foot of Beijing’s city wall.

New clues in the Pamela Werner murder case

Midnight in peking by paul french