CHARLES PHILIPP MARTIN
A musician turned novelist, Charles Philipp Martin grew up in New York City’s Greenwich Village in an opera family. After attending university and music conservatory, he took off for what he terms his six-year paid vacation in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, as a double bass player.
While in Hong Kong, Charles hung up his bow and turned to writing, spending four years as a Sunday Magazine columnist for the South China Morning Post, and writing for magazines all over Southeast Asia. His weekly jazz radio show 3 O'Clock Jump was heard every Saturday on Hong Kong’s Radio 3 for some two decades.
In 2011 Charles’s suspense novel Neon Panic introduced Hong Kong police inspector Herman Lok. Rented Grave, the first in a new Inspector Lok Series, appeared in August 2024. Both novels have earned critical praise for their suspense and their many surprising revelations about the fascinating world of Hong Kong crime and policing.
His short stories have appeared in the anthologies The Killing Rain and Hong Kong Noir, among others.
Charles now lives in Seattle with his wife Catherine. Two more Inspector Lok books are in the works.
THE INSPECTOR LOK NOVELS
