David Clive Price (1) (1947–)

I won my copy of this book free through a Goodreads giveaway. I like books about China, but knew nothing else about this book or its author when I started reading. Well... This novel is about a middle-aged banking executive, Nick, whose bisexual identity becomes harder to hide when he moves to Hong Kong to work in a large international bank there. He meets Daniel, a younger Chinese coworker, and they start up a serious relationship. The bank and Hong Kong society are equally intolerant of open homosexuality, though, so their relationship stays hidden. Around this same time some information is leaked to the press about a merger, information that could damage share prices. Nick begins a second affair, with another young Chinese man called Ray-jai, and it starts to look like Ray-jai might be the one leaking information to the press through information he has access to via Nick.

I didn't find the last 3rd of this book very convincing- one of the execs who turns out not to be a trustworthy friend has a personal grudge against gay people, but this side-arc seemed just tacked on as an afterthought to try to provide motivation for an otherwise weak ending. Otherwise, this was a fairly decent book, a sort of business thriller/romance about a guy 'coming out' and acknowledging his bisexuality to himself and the rest of the world. Nick reminded me a bit of the protagonist in David Payne's Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street, only with less introspection and less of a sense of personal responsibility for the results of his choices.… (meer)