He also started to specialize in thrillers that looked at geopolitical scenarios that were possibly just around the corner. Hawksley’s Ceremony of Innocence (1998; and more recently reissued in e-book format) features a British ex-Hong Kong cop drowning in whisky after his Chinese wife and two kids have disappeared into the vastness of China and appear untraceable. He is drawn into post-Handover conspiracies involving the CIA, Mi6 and the Chinese state.