Peking Man: The Mystery Continues…

BASED ON ONE OF THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

In the 1920s, on a hill near Beijing, a multi-national team discovered a large cache of human bones, some as much as 500,000 years old. Collectively dubbed “Peking Man,” the fossils were one of the most important finds in the history of paleontology, and they generated enormous excitement. Then, as now, evolutionary theory was under attack by supporters of “creationism,” and scientists around the world were frantic to discover the so called Missing Link, the fossil evidence that would prove Darwin right. With Peking Man, they came closer than anyone had before.

For research purposes, the bones were stored at an American medical facility in Beijing, but as war with Japan became increasingly likely, the U.S. government arranged to send the fossils to America for temporary safekeeping. In late 1941, the bones were crated up and handed over to a convoy of U.S. Marines, who were charged with delivering them to a troop ship berthed some three days’ drive away.

The fossils never made it to the ship. Shortly after they were loaded onto the Marines’ trucks, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The Marine convoy was captured by the Japanese military, and the soldiers were thrown into prisoner-of-war camps. And Peking Man has never been seen since.

The Peking Man is Missing is Claire Taschdjian’s speculation, in the form of a novel, as to what might have happened to those priceless bones.

Read the Prologue to The Peking Man is Missing

Claire Taschdjian was secretary to the director of the facility where Peking Man was stored. She was responsible for seeing that the fossils were correctly packed for transport. She was, therefore, one of the last persons known ever to have seen Peking Man.

Claire Taschdjian in Shanghai in the mid-1930s

“Taking a genuine real-life mystery and creating around it a believable, provocative and totally unpredictable fictional explanation is a neat feat. It has been done before, but not more expertly than here, or more originally…It adds up to a superior mystery story, one that deserves serious consideration for an Edgar” — Publishers Weekly

“The fascinating, quick sketches of Western life under Japanese mainland occupation provide exactly the right frame for an elegant puzzle where nothing’s belabored and everything fits” –Kirkus