Left in the Care of

This is a Hong Kong novel like no other, opening with the territory's last colonial Christmas before Britain hands control to China. An era of white privilege is giving way to a new and unpredictable order under the Communists in Beijing. Along a shaded residential lane overshadowed by Victoria Peak, a little English boy is discovered dead by his Filipina baby-sitter. The tragedy casts fear over the closely knit neighbourhood, from the nervous financiers and civil servants in their Mercedes-Benzes to the overworked, silent ranks of the Filipinas who serve them. Among those mourning with the bereaved mother is a neighbour, Claire Raymond, an American foreign correspondent and herself a new mother. When a second boy disappears from Claire's apartment building only one day later, Claire summons all her reporter's intuition and experience to try to forestall a third tragedy. In a single, nightmarish week Claire will see her adopted city in its best and worst light as she struggles to understand not just its private tragedies, but also the choices she herself has to make about her own uncertain future in a city soon to be left in the care of new masters.
Avoiding the cliches of typhoons, tycoons, and concubines, Kung gives us an authentic, suspenseful story of life in Hong Kong on the eve of its historical transition. At the same time, Left In the Care Of is an intimate story of maternal love and terror any parent won't be able to put down.