Jack Caffery
crime thriller
Series · crime fiction
China Thrillers
The China Thrillers series by Peter May has 7 books and is best read in publication order, starting with The Firemaker (1999). The series is complete.
- Books
- 6 novels + 1 novella
- First published
- 1999
- Status
- complete
- Last checked
Start here: The Firemaker (1999) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The order the books were released — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
The Firemaker
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Firemaker - Book 2:
The Fourth Sacrifice
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Fourth Sacrifice - Book 3:
The Killing Room
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Killing Room - Book 4:
Snakehead
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Snakehead - Book 5:
The Runner
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Runner - Book 6:
Chinese Whispers
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Chinese Whispers - Book 7:
The Ghost Marriage
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Ghost Marriage
About the China Thrillers series
Before Peter May found fame with the Lewis Trilogy, he wrote six novels (plus a later novella) set inside Beijing's police bureaucracy, pairing Li Yan, a senior detective in the Ministry of Public Security, with Margaret Campbell, an American forensic pathologist who arrives to lecture on Western crime-scene techniques and ends up investigating alongside him. May researched the series with a rare degree of access to China during a period when the country was still largely closed to Western writers, and the books work as much as a portrait of 1990s and 2000s Beijing -- its politics, its forensic science, its collision of tradition and rapid modernisation -- as they do as police procedurals. The relationship between Li and Margaret, professional rivals who become reluctant partners and eventually a couple, runs underneath the case-of-the-book structure across the whole series.
A seventh, shorter entry, the novella The Ghost Marriage, brought Li and Margaret back in 2016, more than a decade after Chinese Whispers had seemingly closed the series, catching up with them as parents navigating the same demanding careers.
Frequently asked questions
How many China Thrillers are there?
Six full-length novels (1999-2004) plus a shorter 2016 novella, The Ghost Marriage, that returns to the same characters.
Who are the main characters?
Li Yan, a Beijing homicide detective, and Margaret Campbell, an American forensic pathologist -- their case-by-case partnership and personal relationship develop across the series.
Do I need to read these before the Lewis Trilogy or Enzo Files?
No, the three series are unconnected -- different characters, different settings -- and can be read in any order relative to each other.
Is The Ghost Marriage a full novel?
No, it's a novella (around 40 pages), originally published as an ebook.
If you like the China Thrillers series
Reading order last verified .