Review | A Death in Peking: ex-police officer sheds new light on grisly 1937 murder of expat woman
- A 2011 bestselling book threw a salacious spotlight on a long-forgotten killing that occurred in China’s capital in 1937
- It compelled Graeme Sheppard to turn his cooler, more contemplative gaze onto the case
A Death in Peking
Graeme Sheppard
Earnshaw Books
At the last count, book titles attempting to unravel the mystery behind a spate of unsolved murders committed in London’s East End in 1888 numbered in the billions. That’s not true, of course (search for Jack the Ripper books on Amazon.com and the counting algorithm gives up at “over 1,000 results”). But when it comes to what police call “cold cases”, especially those perpetrated long ago, facts are notoriously tough to pin down.
Graeme Sheppard’s A Death in Peking is a non-fiction whodunnit in which the author strives to get to the bottom of the brutal, real-life murder of 19-year-old Briton Pamela Werner, who was killed in the Chinese capital in the winter of 1937.
Immature-for-her-age, “always alone” Pamela lived with her adoptive septuagenarian father, retired former British consul and sinologist E.T.C. Werner, just outside the city’s Foreign Legation Quarter. On the evening of January 7, she left the legation’s French skating rink on her bicycle.
The next morning, her frozen body was discovered in a ditch beside a watchtower in the ancient city wall. Pamela’s face had been mutilated beyond recognition. Although her expensive watch remained on her wrist, her heart had been torn from her chest.
