To get clues to help reveal the culprit, you must go to the different locations on the board such as the Docks or the Laundry. He came across the case because his wife’s grandfather had been a British consul in China at the time and gave him French’s book. There was Wentworth Prentice, the American dentist to Pamela whose wife had suddenly taken the children and fled China.

The sheer history of the country really struck us at that point, and it was one of those moments that you would love to share with other people you know. Neither French nor Sheppard seriously think he murdered and dismembered his foster daughter; nor did anyone much at the time, bar the bored, the vicious or the drunk. When the Chinese police inspector, Han Shi-chung, walks to the murder scene, French takes us through the clamouring hutongs, out onto the packed main streets, through the guarded old gates at the northern corner of the consular Legation section, up onto the old walls of Peking, past the Fox tower where a white Russian had committed suicide by cutting his own throat with a razor, through the haunted section where restless spirits were said to attack the living, pauses to look out over the “Badlands” where the dives, brothels and seedy pleasure palaces sit jumbled together, and finally to the body. Eventually she said something and pointed at a few noodle dishes, but shook her head, so we held up our fingers to show we'd like three of these, even though she seemed to be saying they didn't have them, and Steve, sensible boy, somehow gestured that we wanted a beer each. After years of excited and nervous planning we took the plunge and left our jobs, rented out the house, said goodbye to the folks and friends, got married (well, you've got to be sure your travel buddy's there for you!Today her sad story lives on a little in these books and as a stop on audio-tours of old Peking for tourists. This coupled with some things we had read about pollution and overcrowding had made me not expect a lot from the city.

The issue, Sheppard argues, is that French has taken Werner’s reports and used them as the basis for his book. We, gobbled, yapped, and people watched, fascinated to hear the slurping of noodles and seeing an old man chewing whole cloves of garlic. But I hadn't a clue if I was going to like Beijing or not - well, the thing is that on the way here we met a lot of people travelling in the opposite direction - heading towards Moscow - and I always asked them what they thought of China, and for their impressions of Beijing.I have to admit to totally forgetting this old game until recently being reminded by my sister, after much racking of my memory I suddenly realised it was this cracking little game. The idea of the game is you are a Chinese detective trying to solve one of the various Peking mysteries. There were the two British consuls, struggling to overcome the trauma of being imprisoned during World War 1. Historic cold cases tantalise; justice denied, an ending delayed, the killer at large, a puzzle perpetually in pieces.