Originally published as Left in the Care of, The End of May Road is the second of The Handover Mysteries by Orange Prize-nominated Kung, in which American journalist Claire Raymond is caught in the undertow of China's emergence to regional dominance at the close of the 20th century.
Vol I--The Wardens of Punyu
Claire Raymond's naive new Business World colleague disappears without trace across the Hong Kong-China border while reporting on one of the mainland's new "special economic zones." Claire's search to rescue him leads her through the free-for-all landscape of Guangdong's coastal export boom into the murky use of prison labor camps to feed its illegal organ transplant trade. With one more year to go before Beijing reclaims control of the British colony, China's transition to power already reveals its dark, lawless side. And Claire's career may be reaching a crossroad now that she has met the dashing Swiss UN delegate Xavier Vonalp on assignment from Geneva to set up operations based in Hong Kong.
Vol II--The End of May Road:
Foreign correspondent Claire Raymond finds herself uncomfortably sidelined at home on maternity leave. A neighbor's son, Petey, is found dead along the Midlevel district's May Road during the Christmas season only six months before the official handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. A neurotic anxiety pervades the colonial middle-class and mixes with a mounting religious hysteria among the mistreated Filipina amahs, the housekeepers who slave for Chinese and colonial households. Claire fears for the safety of her own newborn, Caspar. The visit to Hong Kong of Xavier's ex-lover Fabienne adds to her tensions as she investigates Petey's suspicious death.
Vol III--The Shadows of Shigatse:
China now has the upper hand and in the wake of 9/11, even enjoys an anti-terrorist alliance with the US. Swiss UN worker Xavier Vonalp takes his wife, the journalist Claire Raymond to Tibet on his quest to locate an informer in his medical training project betraying Tibetans fleeing to Nepal. Pinpointing which of four suspects might be the deadly turncoat is hard enough, but on the eve of their departure from Hong Kong, Claire's ex-lover Jim returns from the ether to beg a sensitive and secret favor.
A Korean War vet, Jim's father ran Khampa agents in a secret CIA campaign against the Communist army incursion during the 50's and 60's. His plane crashed in the Himalayas but his body disappeared. Against her better judgment, Claire pursues this mystery in Lhasa. Before she knows it, she's smuggling a fugitive Tibetan freedom fighter to safety from Jim's lethal "discipline," and at the same time fighting to help Xavier, trapped by the informer on espionage charges, escape a ten-year sentence in Chinese prison.
In a moving culmination to The Handover Mysteries, Claire locates Jim's father--a symbolic finale to the end of American influence for and against the now-confident Beijing regime.