Description

The thrilling true story of trainrobbing revolutionaries and passengers who got more than they paid for in thisMurder on the Orient Expressstyle adventure set in Chinas republican era

In 1923 Shanghai native and foreign travelers alike are enthralled by the establishment of a new railway line to distant Peking With this new line comes the Peking Express a luxurious express train on the cutting edge of Chinas continental transportation

Among those drawn to the train are oil heiress Lucy Aldrich journalist John Benjamin Powell and vacationing Army Majors Roland Pinger and Robert Allen wives and children in tow These errant Americans and their eclectic fellow passengers all eagerly anticipate an idyllic overnight journey in first class

But the trains passengers are not the only ones enchanted by the Peking Express The bandit revolutionary Sun Meiyao sees in it the promise of a reckoning long overdue From his vantage in Shantung Province a conflictravaged region through which the train must pass he identifies the Peking Express as a means of commanding the global stage By disrupting the train and taking its wealthy passengers hostage he can draw international attention to the plight of Shantung and he hopes thereby secure a solution

In the first hours of May 6 1923 Sun and his bandit troops enact their daring plan Wrested from the pleasures of their luxury cabins dozens of travelers including Aldrich Powell Pinger and Allen are plunged into the unfamiliar Shantung terrain Pursued by warlords and led by their captors they must make their way to the bandits mountain stronghold and there await their fate

The Peking Express is the incredible longforgotten story of a hostage crisis that shocked China and the West It vividly captures the events that made international headlines and later inspired Josef von Sternbergs 1932 Hollywood masterpiece Shanghai Express