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What makes a trusted official or spy into a turncoat? What unravels the loyalties of a lifetime? The answers are both mundane and complex, a locksmith’s combination of greed, desperation, resentment and malevolent ambition in all their permutations. At some point, life and work become unsustainable, even insufferable. A turncoat goes over to the enemy side, often as a “defector-in-place,” staying behind as a secret agent and spying on former colleagues. His or her intent is to inflict damage—on bosses, colleagues, “the system,” whatever—rather than take the “easy” way out by fleeing. And it hardly needs saying that spy services are eager to dissuade their new moles from running for it, preferring to keep them spying in place.

Now comes China Hand, a debut espionage thriller “inspired by actual events,” which spins a persuasive, fast-moving yarn centered on the defection to the U.S of the highest ranking general in the People’s Liberation Army.