The Far Side of the Night

During a trip to China, Paul and Christine experience the nightmare of every parent: their four year old son is threatened with kidnap. The only safe place for the family is the US embassy in Beijing, but they are two thousand miles away, with the police searching frantically for them, and all airports, train stations and major roads under surveillance. They'll have no chance without help from strangers, but who will be willing to risk their lives for them? Suspenseful and rife with the page-turning storytelling that has come to define Sendker's work, Far Side of the Night  is a brilliant and timely thriller that offers a penetrating look into contemporary China.

Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. He has travelled extensively in China and Burma and has an in-depth knowledge of the people and culture. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a non-fiction book about China. Global bestseller The Art of Hearing Heartbeats was his first novel.