How a murder changed China as it moved toward World War II

In the 1930s, Peking is no Shanghai. It lacks the gloriously lawless panache that turned its fellow Chinese city into an international sensation.

Still, Peking has plenty of vice, much of it based right next to a diplomatic enclave full of Western-style hotels, saloons, and shops. It's a volatile mix, and in 1937 it becomes a deadly one: a vivacious young British woman is found brutally murdered and mutilated.

In his new book Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China, author Paul French tells the true-life story of a shocking murder that occurred as China itself stood on the edge of catastrophe in the shadow of a looming World War II.

"Midnight in Peking" is true-crime writing at its best, full of vivid characters, an exotic locale, secrets galore, and a truly bewildering mystery.

In an interview, French talks about the fear spawned by the death of a diplomat's daughter, the stray footnote that spawned his book, and the international "driftwood" who called China home during the Great Depression.

Q: What was happening in Peking – now Beijing – in early 1937, when the young woman was so viciously murdered?

A: This was absolutely the last gasp of old China. The Japanese have surrounded Peking, and it's not really a question of if Japan is going to invade China, but when.

Q: What did her murder mean in the larger picture?

A: In January 1937, she became a great symbol for foreigners and citizens alike in Peking about how bad things could get. If this could happen to a foreign privileged girl, what chances would anybody else have?

Later in 1937, the Japanese would invade and occupy Peking, bomb Shanghai, and commit the Rape of Nanking. That would leave the British Empire weak in facing the Japanese, and in a year Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya would be gone to Japan. And we know what happened then.

Q: How did you come across this story?

A: I learned about it by reading a footnote in a very academic biography of the American journalist Edgar Snow, a Missourian who came out to China during the Depression.

He wrote the famous book "Red Star over China," and said this Mao guy may not be an idiot, and the Communists might be the ones who might take over. He over-glamorized Mao, but he's very well known for the book.

He and his wife lived in a traditional Chinese courtyard with a half-moon entrance gate and buildings on all three sides, on a very traditional street like the little lanes and alleys that made up Peking.

Their next-door neighbors were a British family called the Werners, a father and daughter.

He had been a very well-known diplomat in China and was retired and living as a scholar. His 19-year-old daughter was home for school for the holidays. On Jan. 7, she was murdered, and her body was found near a building called the Fox Tower.

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