5 great Thrillers Set in Hong Kong

Five Great Thrillers Set in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is an incredible setting for contemporary thrillers, with incredible scenery, history and an East meets West post-handover culture clash. If you’re visiting, or want to read exciting books with a Hong Kong setting, this list of five great thrillers set in Hong Kong is for you!

The Peak

The Peak is a fast-moving international thriller that weaves a story of friendship and betrayal together with the ruthless geopolitics of China’s rise, set in the last twenty four hours of the world.

Planes circle, unable to land. The phone lines are down. The power is out. And the only person who knows why is dead. That man was Sebastian, a handsome politician on the rise. Charlie, his political attack dog and childhood friend, just watched him kill himself. Then the Secret Intelligence Service comes knocking. What did Sebastian do? And can Charlie find out before the world implodes?

The Peak has a large cast that requires some concentration as a reader, and an intriguing insight into the ramifications of a terrifying cyber-attack.

The Honourable Schoolboy

George Smiley, now acting head of the Circus, must rebuild its shattered reputation after one of the biggest betrayals in its history. Using the talents of journalist and occasional spy Jerry Westerby, Smiley launches a risky operation uncovering in the Far East, with Hong Kong a major setting. His aim: revenge on Karla, head of Moscow Centre and the architect of all his troubles.

In the second part of John le Carré’s Karla Trilogy, the battle of wits between Smiley and his Soviet adversary takes on an even more dangerous dimension.

The Honourable Schoolboy is a slowburner, but John Le Carre’s attention to detail is always worth the investment of time as a reader.

Do Not Keep Silent

With apologies for the shameless self-promotion:

Mae Yang is a firebrand protest leader in Hong Kong. She’ll sacrifice anything for her beliefs and her cause, including her freedom and even life. But days before her planned protest begins, she meets lost soul Pete Anderson, an English tourist looking for a cause. The last thing Mae needs is a romantic entanglement with an Englishman, the very personification of colonialism. yet time and again the two are drawn together, even while tear gas canisters and rubber bullets fly.

(In the interest of impartiality, I’ve asked Chat GPT to write the summary for Do Not Keep Silent.)

“Do Not Keep Silent is a tense, character-driven thriller and quietly powerful love story that captures the atmosphere of modern Hong Kong through the intertwining stories of a protest leader and a disillusioned English visitor searching for purpose.”

Second Sister

Gossip. Rumour. Revenge.
Wun Wah Tower. Kwun Tong district, Hong Kong.

When Siu-Man jumped from her window on the twenty-second floor, everyone assumed it was suicide. But Sui-Man’s sister, Nga-Yee, a quiet and unassuming librarian, is determined to prove it was murder. The police aren’t interested in re-opening a solved case so she contacts a man known only as N. – a hacker, and an expert in cybersecurity and manipulating human behaviour.

What follows is a cat-and-mouse game through the vibrant city of Hong Kong. The pair’s investigation takes them from creepy commuter-train gropers to the dark corners of the city’s digital underground.

Second Sister is an atmospheric thriller with a slightly dysfunctional anti-hero protaganist.

The Last Six Million Seconds

Finally, to complete ompleting this list of great thrillers set in Hong Kong, I thought long and hard before deciding on John Burdett’s The Last Million Seconds.

As the clock winds down on British Hong Kong, three heads are found floating in the water of the harbour. Chief of Police Chan Siu-kai embarks on a search for the killer and uncovers the truth about a possible British cover-up.

John Burdett writes brilliantly about the Far East, especially Thailand, and The Last Six Million Seconds exhibits his usual flare for detail and atmosphere.