The Chief of Xishuangbanna: A China Thriller

When the Police Chief of tropical Xishuangbanna or ’Banna, ’ goes missing, Supervisor Yu Ha is sent from Beijing to lead the investigation. Despite her Canadian father, Yu Ha is Chinese at heart. She grew up in Banna, on the border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, home to many minorities, especially her mother’s Dai ethnic group.

Yu Ha investigates in a fog of few leads, colleagues she doesn’t trust and a boss bent on replacing her. The stakes go up when she is threatened, and she struggles with self-doubt. As things spiral out of control, she gives chase relentlessly, wherever it leads.

Banna is part of today’s China, neither exoticised nor diabolised, a place both haunted by its past and full of promise for the future. The story straddles China’s s borders with lawless Shan State in Myanmar, impoverished Laos, and throbbing Bangkok.

The author, Dr William Paton, Canadian and British, is a former UN official at the Assistant Secretary-General level, who divides his time among Beijing and Xishuangbanna, and Phuket, Thailand.