Innumerable English novels for children have proceeded on this assumption -- that the child has an open and inquiring cast of mind denied to his elders, and this enables him to solve mysteries, insinuate himself into criminal conspiracies, and generally make the world a better place where all the attempts of the adults have failed. As childhood drifts away, the knowledge and friendships he had as a boy begin to evaporate like a dream. It's the procedure adopted by Kipling in Kim, Stevenson in Treasure Island, J.K.Rowling in the Harry Potter books, and many others. A darker version is that of J.M.Barrie in Peter Pan where nothing is as simple as it seems. (The year's best news so far is that the incomparable British TV mini-series about Barrie, The Lost Boys, is being released on DVD in October.)
Readers who've lived in Hong Kong recently will find this book absorbing reading, and will be intrigued with the details of the territory as it was 50 years ago. Booth may judge that the British world lacked charm, though it was probably his father who was largely responsible for this, but the Chinese world remains fascinating to an extreme degree. It is, however, the unique mix that makes Hong Kong so very distinctive.
Martin Booth died at 58, and wrote this book knowing he didn't have long to live. The desire to memorialize is strong, and masterpieces have resulted from the impulse to set the record straight. All that ancient times can speak to us through are DNA-datable bones and shards of pottery. At least we have books, and this one, though not a masterpiece, serves as an atmospheric evocation of somewhere that's simultaneously instantly recognizable and lost for ever.
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