Chiang Kai-shek on the Forbidden City

Originally published in the Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel as Forbidden Portrait. In 2016, at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, I saw a black and white photo that didn’t compute at first. The photo featured a portrait of the Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-Shek, hung above the Tiananmen gate of the Forbidden City Chiang Kai-shek on the Forbidden City

What Really Happened in Wuhan?

“It began in the autumn of 2019. Months before the first reported case of human-to-human contact, the Wuhan Institute of Virology began to go dark. Publicly available information was wiped from the internet. Staff connected with the Institute disappeared as the scientists fiercely criticised its safety practices and standards. At the same time, there were What Really Happened in Wuhan?

A Certain Kind of Power

‘A Certain Kind of Power’ is an entertaining dissection of corruption, in which Australian author Ryan Butta recreates an Argentina of scandals and cloak and dagger moves. Our guide in the county’s capital, Buenos Aires, is Mike Costello, a jaded American corporate spy. An aging one-time army man, Mike has been in Argentina too long A Certain Kind of Power

Argentina Sketches: Steal Spike

Corina, a forty-seven year old teacher, was walking home when a beaten-up burgundy car pulled up beside her. Two men got out, grabbed Corina, forced her inside and put a bag over her head. Corina, fearing the worst, struggled wildly as her shirt was pulled up, then she felt her stomach burning. Her kidnappers used Argentina Sketches: Steal Spike