Well, there is weird and there is weirder. The strange story of a long ago murder and mutilation of a 19 year old British woman living in Peking in 1937 is being reinvestigated. I guess nobody will ever know what really happened, but the story reminds me of The Black Dahlia (book by James Ellroy), but in Beijing.


On a cold January evening in 1937, the 19-year-old adopted daughter of a former British diplomat in China left her friends, got on her bike and rode to her death. Her murder sent shockwaves through Beijing - then known as Peking - but arguments about the gruesome, unsolved crime echo to this day.

WARNING: Readers may find some of the descriptions of violence in this story distressing.

There was every reason for the killing of Pamela Werner to simply fade into history until a book introduced the case to a modern audience in 2011. But Paul French's best-seller Midnight in Peking also dug up old ghosts and animosities which ran much deeper than the writer could have envisaged.

A retired British policeman, Graeme Sheppard, has now written a rival book challenging French's version of events.

The result: a literary stand-off revolving around family pride, bizarre events now lost in the past and a grisly murder still unsolved.
Read on: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-46450210