Left in the care of

the long version

This is a Hong Kong novel like no other, opening with the territory's last colonial Christmas before Britain hands control to China. An era of white privilege is giving way to a new and unpredictable order under the Communists in Beijing. Along a shaded residential lane overshadowed by Victoria Peak, a little English boy is discovered dead by his Filipina babysitter. The tragedy casts fear over the closely knit neighborhood, from the nervous financiers and civil servants in their Mercedes-Benzes to the overworked, silent ranks of the Filipinas who serve them. Among those mourning with the bereaved mother is a neighbor, Claire Raymond, an American foreign correspondent and herself a new mother. When a second boy disappears from Claire's apartment building only one day later, Claire summons all her reporter's intuition and experience to try to forestall a third tragedy.