On Borrowed Time by Graeme Hall

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for On Borrowed Time by Graeme Hall and published by Rodrigues Court Press.

About the Book

On Borrowed Time is set in Hong Kong and Shanghai over the period 1996/1997 – including the handover of Hong Kong to China. The novel explores the choices that people have to make; in particular between doing what is easy and what is right.

In Hong Kong Emma Janssen discovers the truth behind the death of her brother four years earlier. Meanwhile, in Shanghai, a PhD student meets a woman with an unusual degree of interest in his research. These storylines converge at the time of the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, and Emma finds that she has to choose between revenge or the future happiness and safety of both herself and those close to her.

While being a work of fiction, On Borrowed Time is rooted in the author’s own experiences of living and working in Hong Kong from 1993 to 2010, in particular the final years of British rule and the transfer of sovereignty back to China.

About the Author

Author Photo

Graeme lived in Hong Kong from 1993 to 2010 and still keeps a close connection to the city. His first novel was set in Hong Kong and Shanghai over the period 1996/97 and most of his writing comes from his love of that part of the world. Graeme first visited Macau in 1993 and he quickly became fascinated by the oldest European settlement in Asia. His short story collection, ‘The Goddess of Macau’ was published in August 2020 by Fly on the Wall Press.

He has won the short story competitions of the Macau Literary Festival and the Ilkley Literature Festival, and his writing has been published in anthologies by Black Pear Press and the Macau Literary Festival. He is an active member of the Leeds Writers Circle whose members have been a constant source of advice, support and encouragement. Graeme lives in Calderdale, West Yorkshire with his wife and a wooden dog.

My Review

In Shanghai, Kwok-wah is slowly finding his feet. He forgoes doing a PhD in America, choosing to join Professor Ye in studying comparative algorithms in mobile data transmission. It was taking him a while to settle in, but playing basketball with the guys in his dorm was helping him with the language and not being seen as an alien.

The first time that Emma met Sam was when she became a temp at his office. He was an up and coming lawyer at the McShane Adams firm. She is there to cover for a short period of time and demonstrates that she is a cool efficient worker. Everyone wants to know who this new blonde in the Hong Kong office is, especially when he catches up with Kate and Rob for her birthday.

Emma headed out of the office to meet up with her friend, Alice, who had finally persuaded her to join a human rights group she was involved with. There she meets the small number of members that they have, including a tall Chinese lad called, Liang-bao. He had a good English accent and when Emma questioned him on it, he said that he had completed a masters in England and lived in Stepney.

Alice happens to be Kwok-wah’s cousin too and he is finding in Shanghai that he has attracted the attention of another student. She is a tall slender American-Chinese girl who is studying building sciences. He keeps seeing her around and one day she stops to say hello; it makes him miss the basket he is aiming for! They slowly get to know each other better as they spend more and more time together.

Emma is also in Hong Kong to see if she can find out more about her brother’s death in Hong Kong a few years earlier. He had been killed in a traffic accident and the guy jailed for his death had just been released, but Emma didn’t believe that he was the person really responsible. Susan is not just interested in Kwok-wah she also wants to find out more about the guy visiting the professor he works for. Slowly these six peoples lives become more intertwined as the story heads back to Hong Kong.

I am not a big reader of fiction and it has been a long time since I have read a thriller. I had read Hall’s book of short stories that were set in Macau and enjoyed this one, hence why I decided to give this go too. I must say that I liked it, it is a reasonable plot as he manages to tangle the six characters lives up as the story builds to the end. I liked the setting most of all. I have been fortunate to go to Hong Kong briefly a few times and he got the character of the city spot on, with the chaotic mash-up of London and China that it feels like. Worth a read if you like a different sort of thriller.

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour