Hong Kong on Air [Anglais] [Broché]

An often comic romp through the frenetic world of television news at the time of Hong Kong's handover.

Peppered with quick-repartee dialogue, Cohen mercilessly nails many of the cultural foibles of both expats and Hong Kongers.

An exciting ride of betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie... an insider's look at what really goes on behind the newsroom's closed doors.

As the Hong Kong handover boom fizzles into the Asian economic bust, a young American couple's marriage and careers tumble into a maze of television news, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. While the multicultural melting pot bubbles with pure gold, mistakes are easy to overlook. But the economic crisis ripens relationships for treachery, creates opportunities for revenge, and moves China center stage - triggering a great leap forward for some, a long march to failure for others.

As the Hong Kong handover boom fizzles into the Asian economic bust, a young American couple's marriage and careers tumble into a maze of television news, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie.

TV news veteran Cohen's engaging, often hilarious novel captures the mood ahead of the 1997 handover when Hong Kong reigned as the centre of the universe, a multicultural melting pot bubbling with pure gold. As the Asian crisis abruptly ends the party, mainland China emerges, eclipsing Hong Kong. For everyone whose job or business falls under China's lengthening economic shadow, Hong Kong On Air presents a fresh angle on how it all began.

For TV producer Laura Wellesley, the morning show at Franklin Global Networks Asia means going to bed before dark and swallowing the first rule of broadcast news: the anchor is always right, especially when it's American-born Chinese egomaniac Deng Jiang Mao. For Laura's husband Jeff, the production line for his Golden Beauties lingerie runs through a cagey mother minding their stores on Long Island, cookie tins stuffed with cash smuggled over the border, and hot tubs in Hong Kong's Jewish Community Club and mainland brothels. Cut out of his own multi-million dollar deal, Jeff's consolation prize is Yogi, a Japanese banker with a yen for "Jew food" and men raised on it.

During Hong Kong's pre-handover boom, FGN Asia becomes a hit, a star is born, and mistakes are easy to overlook. But the economic crisis ripens relationships for treachery, creates opportunities for revenge, and moves China centre stage, triggering a great leap forward for some, a long march to failure for others.

New Yorker Muhammad Cohen moved to Hong Kong for six months in 1995 to assist the startup of CNBC Asia. He stayed and became a permanent resident in 2004. His writing on Hong Kong and the region has appeared in Time, Columbia Journalism Review, the International Herald Tribune and Asia Times. Cohen is also co-author of the Lonely Planet Guide to Borneo. Before Hong Kong, he was a TV news producer at CNN in Washington, a sports writer and a US diplomat in Africa.