"The Magistrate"

Brian Klingborg has both a B.A. (University of California, Davis) and an M.A. (Harvard) in East Asian Studies and spent years living and working in Asia. He currently works in early childhood educational publishing and lives in New York City. Klingborg is the author of two non-fiction books on Shaolin kung fu; Kill Devil Falls; and the Lu Fei China mystery series (Thief of Souls, Wild Prey, and The Magistrate.)

Klingborg applied the Page 69 Test to The Magistrate and reported the following:

From page 69:

He turns left and enters the lounge; plush carpeting, comfortable seating, a bar in the back, karaoke stage up front. He checks ashtrays for smudges, the seating for lint, the surface of the bar counter for sticky residue. Tang runs a tight ship and any dereliction of duty by his staff will result in a heavy fine.

Next, he heads up to the second-floor west wing and inspects the bedrooms where his hostesses service clients to make sure the sheets have been changed, trash emptied, supply of condoms and lubricant and sex toys replenished. He traverses the mezzanine to the east wing, unlocks the door with his key card and walks down a hallway lined with offices on either side. A facility as grand as the Little Red Palace requires a great deal of administrative work, and already his staff is hard at work, crunching numbers, paying bills, ordering supplies.

At the far end of the hallway, opposite Tang’s personal office, is a rein- forced door leading to a control room. Only two people have a key card that will unlock this door—Tang and his head of security, a big ex-fighter nicknamed Chaiyou—“Diesel.” Tang unlocks it now and enters to find Diesel sitting at a monitor reviewing CCTV footage from the night before.

“Morning, boss,” Diesel says.

“Anything good?” Tang says.

“Pull up a chair.”

Tang lights a fresh cigarette while Diesel cues up video of the director of Heilongjiang’s largest steel manufacturer attempting to have drunken sex with one of Tang’s hostesses.

“I’d say he’s less of a steel magnate,” Tang jokes, “and more of a dofu peddler!”

In addition to the standard security measures one expects—cameras at the front and back gates, the entrances to the main residence, scattered around the grounds—there are hidden feeds in LRP’s lounge, gambling room, and bedrooms. Naturally, Tang’s guests don’t know they are being filmed—if they did, there would be hell to pay—but the cabinet lining the back of the control room is stuffed with fastidiously labeled hard drives commemorating the sexual hi- jinks of some of Harbin’s most important citizens.

Even some of Tang’s own brothers in the NBA, including Chiefs Xu and Hong, Deputy Mayor Wan, and Judge Ren, make guest appearances.

You could certainly do worse than gauging what’s going on in The Magistrate by leaping directly ahead to page 69.

The plot concerns a group of corrupt politicians in Harbin, China who are being targeted by a shadowy figure who calls himself the Magistrate. Our hero, Inspector Lu Fei, gets involved when he comes to suspect his own investigation into the sex trafficking of young women from North Korea is somehow connected to this group of crooks and their anonymous tormentor.

On page 69, we meet the de facto leader of the badly behaving politicians, a man named Tang Fuqiang, as he makes his rounds in the establishment he calls the Little Red Palace. Here, he plies the rich and powerful with whatever they fancy – women, wine, games of chance - and secretly records their bad behavior. (Tang and the Little Red Palace are based on a real case that occurred in Shanghai in just a few years ago).

Visit Brian Klingborg's website.

My Book, The Movie: Wild Prey.

Q&A with Brian Klingborg.

The Page 69 Test: Wild Prey.

Writers Read: Brian Klingborg.

--Marshal Zeringue