A young woman, Pamela Werner, is found brutally murdered on the wrong side of town. The town is Peking, her father is a former British diplomat, the Japanese are on the outskirts of the city, and World War II is imminent. British and Chinese detectives turn up nothing but rumors leaving Pamela’s distraught father to spend most of his remaining years searching out the truth and hounding the British embassy to end its cover-up and reopen its investigation. I suppose the story is compelling enough, but not quite so interesting to be worth a retelling. Unfortunately, thousands of young women are murdered and the author of this account doesn’t make this one feel important. Gruesome and heartbreaking, yes, but significant, not really.