Year of the flop

They say you should never judge a book by its cover. They were right. The cover of this book, the back in any case, tempts the reader by comparing Year of the Ox to George Orwell's disturbing masterpiece Nineteen Eighty Four.

Poppycock.

In this 'thriller', we are presented with Hong Kong's worst-case scenario. Madame Zhang Ye Gong is China's tough new leader who secretly plans to tear up the Joint Declaration and Basic Law and whip Hong Kong into shape 100 days after July 1, 1997.

Cut to a bunch of expats, and a couple of locals for good measure, whose lives revolve around construction of the Prince of Wales Bridge, cunningly similar to Hong Kong's actual Tsing Ma Bridge on which the author worked during one of his two periods in Hong Kong.

We follow each of them through their own crises: opium addiction; an amputated leg; a murder trial; an execution. All typical run-of-the-mill stuff for bridge workers, of course, and presumably building up our affection for them for when Big Brother, or in this case Big Zhang, has had enough of just watching.

Unfortunately, when she has, I found I didn't care. The characters are so shallow that I didn't feel I knew Derek Green, who left his wife for a girlie-bar girl; I didn't know Tom O'Connell, who got into a spot of bother with the triads. I wouldn't have known what Hong Kong was like either if I didn't live here.

Some story lines held a glimmer of hope but most faded and died, mainly due to inane dialogue.

Others just go nowhere. Take Yip Lin, the girlie-bar hostess who wins $5 million on page 39 but continues to have sex with strangers in the back room of the Welsh Lion until at least page 331, while her fiance sips Tsing Tao at the bar.

And this is in a Hong Kong where prices bear more of a resemblance to 1979 than 1997. Amahs accept $800 a month and hostess drinks cost peanuts.

Why the author chose to place Hong Kong in a parallel universe is uncertain.

The governor, for instance, is a Sir Chris Patten who wears his plumes; Tsing Ma, sorry, Prince of Wales Bridge, can be seen from Happy Valley.

In the end it was a shame that Worsdale, who no doubt can write, spoiled the opportunity to exploit, albeit through a fictional thriller, the true fears of uncertainty in Hong Kong.

As his first novel, it is a pity he was not better guided by his publisher, whom I suggest might want to read again Nineteen Eighty Four.

Worsdale's projection may be right and 1997 may turn out to provide Hong Kong's worst-case scenario, which is why this book is so disappointing.

But I somehow doubt the Year of the Ox could ever be as dreadful as Year of the Ox.

1997: Year of the Ox by Frank Worsdale Mandarin, $85