Hong Kong student makes transition from illness to detective story writer

When Adrian Ho was a Form One student in secondary school, he fainted and was unconscious in a hospital bed for three weeks. He had a disease called Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), which means that his blood had unusually low levels of platelets – the cells that help clot blood. This meant he was prone to excessive bruising and bleeding.

Ho’s illness drove the 22-year-old to write and publish seven English-language detective novels in the past six years, the newest of which was released at the Hong Kong Book Fair yesterday.

The former student still remembers what it was like when he found out about his disease when he was around nine.

“It was devastating because I still had a bit of an ambition to become a footballer. But then it sort of gradually changed me.”

The disease meant that he could no longer play strenuous sports like football or basketball.

“I still remember crying that night, because I couldn’t take it. And then I had to sit in a corner at school when people were having PE lessons. I’ve had a slightly different upbringing from my friends.”

When Ho was unconscious in hospital, his father, barrister and Communications Authority chairman Ambrose Ho Pui-him, remained at his bedside. When Adrian Ho woke up, he soon developed an impulse to write.