Excerpt from The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee, S.J. Rozan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Prologue
Beijing, 1966

It seems every tale of Dee Ren Jie begins with a fight.

Dee himself is the most patient and just of men; yet in some places and in some times, patience and justice are not the virtues most prized by some men. In those times and places, preparing oneself for the rigors of physical combat is the way of wisdom, and Dee is also wise.

In years to come, men looking back on China in our day, as I am looking back now on England in an earlier one, may conclude that was how things were with us. I cannot say.

But with certainty, I can say this: it was how things were in London in the late summer of 1924.

CHAPTER ONE
London, 1924

I'm just telling yer, Mr. Dee, and with respect, o' course, I don't much like this place yer've brought us to. A mist so thick I can almost grab 'old of it, and trees way over me 'ead, with 'oo knows what's walking around in 'em. Monkeys and such, I'll warrant! And the smell in the air—it ain't natural, sir. With nary a streetlamp to be seen. Just shadows and the shadows o' shadows. And deer! Deer, Mr. Dee! With great sharp 'orns. Could we not do our business elsewhere, is all I'm asking."

"We could do our business anywhere, Jimmy." Judge Dee, unseen, answered the complaint of young Jimmy Fingers from deep in the darkness under a massive oak. "The men we've come to intercept, however, insist on doing theirs here. Don't worry. If all goes well, I'll have you back on the streets of London within the hour."

This promise was a touch superfluous, as we had not left London. To reach the streets, one would have had merely to stroll ten minutes from the Richmond Park clearing, in which we stood. Our errand had not brought us very far into that greensward, certainly not far enough to encounter the King's deer, with or without great sharp horns. The damp and loamy scent Jimmy protested was, in fact, that of man's original Arcadian state, in contrast to the scents Jimmy preferred and that awaited us beyond the park's walls: the smoke of coal fires and the exhaust of buses and motorcars, the aromas of cooked meat and horse dung and whatever was floating at the moment in the Thames. As for monkeys, the nearest were twenty-five kilometers away, asleep in their cages at the Regent's Park Zoo.

"Jimmy," I said, speaking in English as Dee had, for admire Dee as he did, the lad had yet to learn a word of Chinese, "does an evening in the greenery not suit you?"

"That it don't, Mr. Lao. The dark is too ... dark! And things is rustling—" He jumped as a thing rustled. "I 'aven't spent a great deal o' time in such places, see. Parks and trees and all don't 'ave much to offer a man engaged in my line o' work."

Although Jimmy had for a time been, and was now again, in the employ of Dee, Dee had lately been absent from London for some months. In April, he'd sailed for China, and none of us—myself, Jimmy, or Sergeant Hoong, who completed our foursome here in the clearing—had been sure he would return, and if he were to do so, when. Hoong had reverted to his shopkeeping, with which he claimed to be content. I could not say as much for my sentiments toward my own life lecturing in the basics of the Chinese language at the University of London. Classes, when I took them up again, I found no more stimulating than when I first began them upon my arrival in London the year previous. For his part, Jimmy Fingers asserted, whenever we three met for a bowl of noodles—to his credit, the young man had developed quite an appreciation for the cuisine of my homeland during his first stint in Dee's service—that he was tiptoeing the straight and narrow, that I am, sirs. However, according to Hoong's intelligence, Jimmy had happily resumed his career as a pickpocket. Pickpocketing, of course, requires pockets to pick, which are hard to come by amid tall trees and things that rustle.

Excerpted from The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan. Copyright © 2025 by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan. Excerpted by permission of Soho Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.