GOLDSEA | ASIAN BOOKVIEW | FICTION

he Charlie Chan in John Burdett's novel The Last Six Million Seconds is a Eurasian who works for the Hong Kong Police Department. He's ordered to solve the gruesome triple murders of two Chinese men and a Western woman--then to forget everything. Along the way, the reader is treated to a dazzling but ultimately dark--not to say paranoid--vision of what the old men who rule China have in store for Hong Kong's six million citizens who, after all, might be the title's last six million seconds. A taut, thought-provoking read.