Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Killing Room by Peter May

The Killing Room by Peter May

The Killing Room

by Peter May

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Feb 2008, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Peter May’s thrilling new China novel brings together Beijing detective Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell for the third time.

When the mutilated and dismembered bodies of eighteen women are discovered in a mass grave in Shanghai, Li is sent to establish if the corpses are related to an unsolved murder in Beijing, and he finds the most horrifying catalog of killings ever uncovered in the Middle Kingdom.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Suspenseful plot twists and turns, the beautifully depicted Chinese culture, and the unresolved relationship of Li and Campbell make this an essential read. While there are other mysteries using modern China as a setting, none is as provocative as May's series." - Library Journal.

"The plot skips here and there, with some surprising revelations leading to a slightly predictable but gratifying finale." - Publishers Weekly.

This information about The Killing Room was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Peter May Author Biography

Photo: Domi Photographe

Peter May won the Scottish Young Journalist of the Year Award at the age of 21, and had his first novel published at 26. He then left journalism and became one of Scotland's most successful and prolific television dramatists. By the age of 30 he had created two major TV series, The Standard and Squadron, for the British television network, the BBC. He went on to gather more than 1000 TV credits in fifteen years, creating and writing major drama serials for both BBC and ITV in the UK: including the ground-breaking Gaelic serial Machair, which he also produced.

Returning now to novels, the six novels in his outstanding China Thrillers series have won critical acclaim. To research the series, Peter May makes annual trips to China. With an extraordinary network of contacts, he ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Peter May's Website

Other books by Peter May at BookBrowse
  • The Blackhouse jacket

10 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more mysteries...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home: but unlike charity, it should end there.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.