How have I come to write a thriller?

After walking away from my job in 2022, I had plenty of time on my hands. So I sat down to write a memoir about how I started the Fringe in Hong Kong and ran it for 40 years. 

What happened was, I had got hold of an old ice house and converted it into an arts space and created for myself a life and job that I loved dearly. Never a dull moment is not an exaggeration.

You can read about all that in Life On the Fringe: The Almost Naked Memoir  (Amazon.com). This book was launched at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival last Spring. I was invited to give a talk about it at the Fringe Club. Afterwards, Mary Chan, my publisher casually asked: “What are you going to do next?” I said: “I’m going to write an arts thriller.” I didn’t know where that’d come from. 

The incident that had sparked it off happened a while back. I got a call from Bernard, my classmate from school, one day out of the blue. He was an Immigration lawyer. He asked if I’d be interested to broker a deal that would make me rich. I was not rich, but my mother had taught me one thing - if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, she’s right up to a point. The deal turned out to be true. It was about some very valuable paintings previously owned by a powerful person that you may guess who that was. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t end well with some of those concerned. For me, I’d walked away from it, not with a lot of money, but a story that has been brewing in my head for many years up until now.  I’m calling it Trailing Monet: A Romping Thriller of Romance, Adventures In Exotic Places & Stolen Paintings.