[Photo provided to China Daily]

Xia Yin

Following the recent movie, Hidden Man, adaptation of the novel, written by Zhang Beihai, that was first published in China in 2007, a new version of the martial arts novel Xia Yin is available.

It tells the story of a chivalrous young man in the 1930s who recently returns to Peking after studying in the United States. He begins to explore the alleyways of the ancient city in a bid to find the identity of the murderer in a crime that happened five years ago.

Zhang spent years sifting through hundreds of both Chinese and English books about the era, in a bid to accurately portray the city where he was born as it was in 1936. The book has a special draw for readers who, like me, live in the capital.