Review | Former policeman tells a rollicking tale of the Hong Kong force, and of the city itself
- Chris Emmett’s follow-up tale of Hong Kong’s finest is sufficiently gripping to cover the cracks of any narrative flaws
- Dramatic events both famous and obscure are tapped to paint a historical portrait of the city’s force
Hong Kong Police: Inside the Lines
by Chris Emmett
Earnshaw Books
4/5 stars
Former Hong Kong police officer Chris Emmett knows how to spin a good yarn. Having told many of his own stories in his 2014 memoir, Hong Kong Policeman, for his new book he has called on the recollections of former colleagues.
In Hong Kong Police: Inside the Lines, Emmett narrates a partial history of the Hong Kong Police Force, largely through a series of dramatic events, some famous, others obscure. Any credibility gaps are dealt with by scenes so action-packed, details so astonishing and writing so entertaining that such flaws no longer matter.
Gripping from the start, the book begins with a tense, undated anecdote about an undercover drug deal, told in the first person. It is a little jarring when the narrative then skips to the accounts of imagined characters, moving between history and fiction, with the story based on true events and written from the perspective of someone actually there, when Emmett clearly was not.
Set in the 1970s, the first chapter features the larger-than-life Ma brothers – respectable businessmen by day, alleged drug smugglers by night. Claims to literal historical truth are undercut by a narrative formed largely from police anecdotes, which, like war stories, can become embellished with repeated telling. Hong Kong Police: Inside the Lines, however, aims to be illustrative of the bigger picture, rather than a history book.
