The Fox Wife

Manchuria, 1908: Snow, a fox spirit living in the form of a woman, is hunting the photographer she holds responsible for her young daughter’s death. She enters the household of an ageing medicine-shop matriarch and follows the connections between the woman’s grandson, his fellow medical students and the elusive Bektu Nikan. In a parallel investigation, Bao, an elderly detective with an uncanny ability to recognise lies, is asked to identify a courtesan found frozen in a doorway.

Their separate pursuits cross northern China and Meiji Japan as murder, old loyalties and fox folklore draw them towards the same hidden history. The novel places ancient belief beside medical study, photography and modern travel in the unsettled last years of the Qing Empire, while examining maternal grief, revenge and the stories used to portray women—and foxes—as dangerous seducers.