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The Peking Express

James M. Zimmerman

Warwick’s presents
James M. Zimmerman
in conversation with Dean Calbreath, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist for the SD Union-Tribune

The Peking Express

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 - 7:30pm PDT

Warwick's
7812 Girard Ave
La Jolla, CA 92037
The Peking Express
Reserve Seats Here

$30+tax: One reserved seat and one copy of THE PEKING EXPRESS, to be picked up at Warwick's the evening of the event

PLEASE NOTE: This event is free and open to the public; free admittance is subject to available space. Limited open seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. To ensure seating, we encourage you to pre-order one book per seat through Warwick’s for everyone in your party.

Reserved Seating is available when The Peking Express is pre-ordered from Warwick's through the linked green "Reserve Seats Here" button above. Only books purchased from Warwick's will be signed. Please call the Warwick's Book Dept. (858) 454-0347 for details.

On Tuesday, April 4th at 7:30pm Warwick's will host James M. Zimmerman as he discusses and signs his new book, The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China. James M. Zimmerman is a Beijing-based lawyer who has lived and worked in China for over 25 years. He is among China's leading foreign lawyers and represents companies and individuals confronted with the political and legal complexities of doing business in Mainland China. He is the author of the China Law Deskbook, published by the American Bar Association, and is frequently featured as a political commentator on US-China relations in various print and broadcast media around the globe. He is the former four-term Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. In addition to Beijing, he maintains a home in San Diego, California.

The Peking Express is the incredible, long-forgotten story of a hostage crisis that shocked China and the West. It vividly captures the events that made international headlines and later inspired Josef von Sternberg's 1932 Hollywood masterpiece Shanghai Express.

In 1923 Shanghai, native and foreign travelers alike are enthralled by the establishment of a new railway line to distant Peking. With this new line comes the Peking Express, a luxurious express train on the cutting edge of China's continental transportation.

Among those drawn to the train are oil heiress Lucy Aldrich, journalist John Benjamin Powell, and vacationing Army Majors Roland Pinger and Robert Allen, wives and children in tow. These errant Americans and their eclectic fellow passengers all eagerly anticipate an idyllic overnight journey in first class.

But the train's passengers are not the only ones enchanted by the Peking Express. The bandit revolutionary Sun Mei-yao sees in it the promise of a reckoning long overdue. From his vantage in Shantung Province, a conflict-ravaged region through which the train must pass, he identifies the Peking Express as a means of commanding the global stage. By disrupting the train and taking its wealthy passengers hostage, he can draw international attention to the plight of Shantung and, he hopes, thereby secure a solution.

In the first hours of May 6, 1923, Sun and his bandit troops enact their daring plan. Wrested from the pleasures of their luxury cabins, dozens of travelers including Aldrich, Powell, Pinger, and Allen are plunged into the unfamiliar Shantung terrain. Pursued by warlords and led by their captors, they must make their way to the bandits' mountain stronghold and there await their fate.

Dean Calbreath was part of the Polk- and Pulitzer-winning team that uncovered the biggest individual bribery scandal in Congressional history. With fellow journalists Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, they co-wrote The Wrong Stuff: The Extraordinary Saga of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Most Corrupt Congressman Ever Caught. He is also the author of The Sergeant: The Incredible Life of Nicholas Said. Calbreath has earned numerous awards over the past three decades for investigative, historical, and international reporting. Calbreath is also an experienced public speaker, from delivering lectures at leading colleges and universities to appearances on television, radio talk shows, and podcasts.

The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China By James M. Zimmerman Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9781541701700
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: PublicAffairs - April 4th, 2023