Chan Ho-Kei’s The Borrowed is a backward-facing epic, looking over sixty years of the modern history of Hong Kong. In six parts it tells the story of Kwan Chun-Dok and his protégé, Sonny Lok, two Hong Kong cops navigating the corrupt and changing world of policing, as the city itself changes. From murders in upper-class mansions to kidnappings of foreign residents, from gang violence to a terrorist plot to assassinate the police commissioner, Kwan and Lok develop together as investigators solving the crimes that define the modern city. There can be no better introduction to modern Chinese-language crime fiction. Read the review here.
