China Hand

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Pub Date 21 Jun 2022 | Archive Date 20 Jul 2022

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Description

“A gut punch of a thriller. This riveting debut is an intoxicating story of espionage, adventure, love, and betrayal in Beijing.” —David McCloskey, former CIA officer and author of widely acclaimed Damascus Station

INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EVENTS: When a high-ranking Chinese general wants to defect to the US, the CIA tries to recruit a recent Harvard grad teaching at a Beijing university to exfiltrate the man’s daughter—a treacherous operation that could shape the balance of power for decades.

The whole debacle was classified and buried. Until now.

It’s 1998, and China’s political and military leaders are torn by ideological divisions. Amid these seething rivalries, Andrew Callahan arrives in Beijing fresh out of Harvard, planning to spend an adventurous year studying Mandarin and teaching at the renowned International Affairs University. The IAU is known as a training ground for diplomats and spies. But Andrew has no idea that his budding relationship with the attractive and self-assured dean’s assistant, Lily Jiang, will also entangle him in a conspiratorial web of worldwide proportions.

A CIA officer approaches Andrew and informs him that Lily’s father is a top Chinese general caught in a power struggle. The general wants to defect but won’t do so without his wife and daughter. Even more shocking is that the Agency needs Andrew’s assistance for Lily to evade round-the-clock surveillance and escape to the US.

If Andrew agrees, he’ll face lethal odds against China’s ruthless security services to help pull off one of the greatest intelligence coups in American history. If he refuses, it could cost Lily and her family their lives.

Set against the backdrop of a beautiful culture at a turbulent time, China Hand is the story of a reluctant spy and a mission whose deadly consequences continue to reverberate today.
“A gut punch of a thriller. This riveting debut is an intoxicating story of espionage, adventure, love, and betrayal in Beijing.” —David McCloskey, former CIA officer and author of widely acclaimed ...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781637583869
PRICE US$28.00 (USD)
PAGES 256

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Featured Reviews

China Hand by Scott Spacek is a highly-recommended suspense/thriller told by Andrew Callahan, a fresh young Harvard graduate on a one year teaching stint in a Chinese university before joining a prestigious global consulting firm.

Almost immediately Andrew is attracted to and begins a relationship with Lily, the Dean’s assistant, who also happens to be an Army General’s daughter. Shortly afterwards, Andrew is approached to help the CIA extract a Lily and so is effectively recruited into the CIA with all the risks associated with detection and capture that that entails.

While the plot is initially set in and near the university in Beijing, we are given fleeting glimpses of the colourful local culture as Andrew explores occasional nightclub, restaurant and a boxing club. The setting though is primarily the politically- and culturally-charged university in which USA and by extension ‘all Americans’ are vilified. As anti-USA protests due to USA’s bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade build, Lily’s escape becomes a matter of urgency.

I read the latterhalf of this book in one sitting because the pace picked up significantly and the story quickly turned into an action-suspense-thriller as Andrew helped Lily escape from the university. They soon met with Lily’s mother, whose escape had been helped by another US university teacher/CIA agent and friend of Andrew. Their escape plan was discovered almost immediately forcing them off-script. This involved a long van ride, a plane trip, a train trip, a street chase followed by a shoot-out in a shopping mall, separation from Lily and her mother, and ultimately a high-tension boarding of a ferry to Korea. That’s certainly not where the story ended, but because this is a suspense, I’ll stop there.

The 1980s were a grim time in China, especially if you were an American living and working there and the story reflects that. Nonetheless, I felt the author didn’t give me enough of the exotic culture and setting. There were brief references to eating in restaurants and navigating the city and the air pollution but these were too brief, in my opinion.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading a fast-paced novel written in the first-person because it ‘sounded’ like I was being told the story by the one person who could tell it the best, the protagonist. This adds to the story’s authenticity and credibility. The relationship between Andrew and Lily felt genuine and the danger associated with their capture while running from the Chinese authorities felt more urgent for the story being told in the first person. (I wish there were more thrillers written in the first person.)

I wholly recommend China Hand to those who enjoy a fast and thrilling read with a snappy finish.

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