In the 1970s, a Hong Kong taipan, Donald MacGribben, sets out to obtain a secure future for the British Crown Colony amid uncertainty created by a power struggle in Maoist China. He arranges a meeting at the Canton (Kwangtung) Trade Fair with the Chinese Premier to seek a public assurance, in return for a substantial annual payment, that China has no immediate plans to seize HK. However, the Premier’s enemies are scheming to have him killed in a manner that will incriminate MacGribben, whose heroin-addicted wife has been blackmailed into carrying the murder weapon from Hong Kong into China.Getting wind that MacGribben’s scheme is under threat, Hal Jernberg, his friend and partner, races to unravel the complex conspiracy of the Chinese leader’s opponents but becomes himself a target. Suspense builds up in this action drama as the time for the meeting of the Premier and MacGribben draws near.The Peking Payoff takes the reader back to a China where rival factions are positioning themselves for the succession battle after the aging Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) dies and to a Hong Kong still controlled from London through the Governor. The transfer of sovereignty over the territory from Britain to China is still more than two decades away.Nine years after The Peking Payoff was published (in 1975), Teng Hsiao-ping (Deng Xiaoping) outlined his "one country, two systems" policy in relation to Hong Kong at a meeting with a delegation from the British Crown Colony. He declared that Hong Kong would “remain the same for a long time to come”. It was just what MacGribben sought to achieve.[I have retained the old system of romanizing Chinese script in this e-book edition of The Peking Payoff, which was standard at the time I wrote the book. Subsequently, of course, Peking became Beijing.]
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