PUBLISHERS are bracing themselves for an onslaught of 1997 books set in Hong Kong, we hear.
Our sources in the literary world tell us authors are queuing up to visit the territory to carry out research and get their novels written in time to capitalise on the handover to Chinese sovereignty.
Yesterday, John Gordon Davis, the former government Crown Counsel whose first book, Hold My Hand, I'm Dying stormed to the top of the best-seller list in 1967, arrived here looking for inspiration.
And already scouting the territory for research purposes is Stephen Leather, a former business editor of the South China Morning Post who packed his job in after finding fame and fortune writing thrillers. He now lives in Dublin.
Davis, a prolific writer who now has a comfortable home in southern Spain, came to Hong Kong in 1966 relatively penniless from his native Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
His first book was set against the political backdrop of the country as it moved painfully towards independence.
