The Hamlet Murders

It's summer in Shanghai. The city's 18 million residents continue their hurtling progress toward modernization.  This hits home when Fong is told that his rooms are being "condo-ized" and he's being offered the special insider's price—approximately four years' worth of his salary.  He is awakened from a deep sleep by the ring of his phone.  It is the night watchman of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and he's crying.  At the theatre, Fong can't believe his eyes.  His old rival and his deceased wife's lover, the Canadian theatre director Geoffrey Hyland, swings from the end of a long rope centre stage, an apparent suicide.  As Fong stares at the dead body he feels the world spin beneath his feet and senses not only that this is not a suicide, but also that finding whoever killed his old enemy will lead him to a new knowledge of him self—a knowledge he's not sure he is able to face.

Reviews & Press Clippings:

“Rotenberg has a real talent for characterization and place, taking readers right into the urban heart of Shanghai, with its 18 million people and conflicts between tradition and modernization.”
     —Margaret Cannon for the Globe & Mail (May 15, 2004).

“This delightful series...gets better with each new novel.”
     —Halifax Chronicle Herald (June 20, 2004)

“Rotenberg's latest Zhong Fong mystery is superb.”
     —New Brunswick Reader

David Rotenberg's novels are available online at or at