uncle as a boy) that his father ran away to Hong Kong with his new lover and that his mother a few weeks later insulted Chinese warlord Wang Ku, who then seized her to be his concubine. Philip is a Communist double agent. He was complicit in the kidnapping and made sure Christopher was not present when this kidnapping took place. He offers Christopher a gun to kill him, but Christopher refuses. He learns that his father later died of typhoid but that his mother may still be alive. Philip reveals the source of Christopher's living expenses and tuition fees during his schooling in England. His mother extracted financial support for her son when Wang Ku seized her. In 1958 in Hong Kong, Christopher is reunited with his mother, who does not recognise him. He uses his childhood nickname, "Puffin", and his mother seems to recognise it. He asks her to forgive him, but she is confused as to what he should need forgiveness for. Christopher takes this as confirmation that she has always loved him. Reception Despite being short-listed for the Booker Prize, some reviewers described the novel as one of Ishiguro's weakest works, with Ishiguro himself saying "It's not my best book". Philip Hensher wrote that "The single problem with the book is the prose, which, for the first time, is so lacking in local colour as to be entirely inappropriate to the task in hand." He concludes that "The resolution is moving and graceful, but the problem of the voice is a universal one, present and incredible in every sentence". Michiko Kakutani said that "Mr. Ishiguro simply ran the notion of a detective story through the word processing program of his earlier novels, then patched together the output into the ragged, if occasionally brilliant, story we hold in our hands." References External links Ishiguro takes a literary approach to the detective novel. Interview by Alden Mudge. Lynn I. Miller: Kazuo Ishiguro – When we were orphans. Brian H. Finney: Figuring the Real: Ishiguro's When we Were Orphans. 2001. 2000 British novels Novels set in Shanghai British war novels Novels by Kazuo Ishiguro Fiction with unreliable narrators Novels about orphans Novels set in China Faber and Faber books Japan in non-Japanese culture