Farewell the Dragon: American Boomer in China before the boom

In Farewell the Dragon, Nate Scheutt, American, 35, is pulled into a politically charged murder investigation when he stumbles onto the bodies of two young Europeans on a prestigious Beijing university campus. Gradually Nate discovers the case is entwined with an international quest for a small stone tablet, (a stele) that might contain the key to ancient China's long-lost link with the West.

In the 1980's, old Beijing's walls and hutong alleyways were disappearing, victims of Deng Xiaoping'...