Caroline Petit

Having just seen the movie City of Life and Death about the Rape of Nanking, the historical setting was both familiar and haunting. This is really more historical novel than mystery, but the story is interesting and the chapters intriguing,- if a bit remote. The characters are fully formed, even if, as the reader, you never feel any real connection to them and that is a flaw. Although this was classed as a mystery and there is a thread of mystery in the plot, this is more straight historical fiction than mystery.… (mer)

*chuckle* I think that ‘Deep Trouble’ might have been a better title for this book than Deep Night!

A sequel to The Fat Man’s Daughter (2005), Deep Night is the story of attractive, sexy Leah Kolbe, who runs her Hong Kong antiques business according to the somewhat dubious principles of her father, who died in mysterious circumstances. In this sequel, the Sino-Japanese War, under the radar of great powers preoccupied by the war in Europe, suddenly escalates in significance with the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the start of the Pacific War. Hong Kong is a British colony, not then thought to be at risk from the Japanese who have occupied Manchuria, while China, beset by internal struggles, is trying to ward off territorial ambitions that threaten its independence even further. It’s not a good time to be in a business that depends on exports to wealthy westerners.

It’s also not a good time to rush into an engagement but Leah decides to stop fending off Jonathan (who is also sexy and attractive but is undesirably more interested in settling down with a family than in her business), only to have him captured by the invading Japanese and sent off to an uncertain fate. Using her contacts, Leah decamps to Macau, now part of China, but then a Portuguese colony and at this stage of the war, the sole remaining European possession in Asia. Its status, however, is tentative, as a translator explains to Leah:

“Macau is only free because there is a large Japanese community in Brazil (a Portuguese colony in the 19th century). Portugal threatened to freeze the bank accounts of these wealthy Japanese. Japanese officers are crawling all over Macau. They swagger about like they own the place. We are still afraid that they might blockade Macau or take us over.” (p.75)

Leah arrives, like so many other refugees, with nothing, because (conveniently within swimming distance of Macau) she was unceremoniously dumped out of the junk she’d hired and loses everything from her passport to her shoes. She is taken in by the British Consul Stephen Albemarle (who is middle-aged but fancies her) and he invents a job for her at the consulate, which is (as you’d expect) involved in transmitting intelligence.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/12/18/deep-night-by-caroline-petit/… (mer)

I feel I should have enjoyed this book more than I did.
Set in 1937 Hong Kong , this novel shows interesting insight into the colonialism of that time, as well as the Japan occupation of Manchuria (in China).
The main character Leah Kolbe is left alone after the death of her father, a man who'd been involved in dubious enterprises of antiquities and likely smuggling. His passion for Chinese antiquities was a legacy she shared; however it also bought political and criminal espionage with it. That sleazier world was one she was also forced to share in order to manage her life without his protection in the prim, oh-so-controlled and casually racist colonial English occupied Hong Kong.

All my tags for this book show it has so much to catch my interest. However I just didn't like the main character and could not empathise with her.
It was a good book, an excellent debut novel by Australian author Caroline Petit, but has missed being a great book. And it could have been.… (mer)