Postman Lawrence Shang was watching a film called The Axeman of Shanghai when his life abruptly ended. Carpet trader Edward Peng was enjoying The Last Picture Show. Death in both cases was instantaneous, caused by a small calibre handgun used at a range of two feet.

With their deaths begins a series of apparently motiveless murders in one cinema after another across the Hong Bay district of Hong Kong - and a nightmarish investigation for Harry Feiffer, Detective Chief Inspector, Royal Hong Kong Police Force, and his staff at the Yellowthread Police Station.

The Hatchet Man's next victim is a sailor off an American ship. Then a German is shot in an auction room. There's an unaccountable killing on a train near the Chinese border. And the crazy old Mrs Mortimer from the Old People's Home steps in front of a tram . . . And for Harry Feiffer, time is running out.

Full of real police procedure, suspense and fine irony, but with whole extra dimensions of the surreal and the poignant, the Yellowthread Street novels have no real compare - a hidden masterpiece of crime fiction.