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The Old Cable House

by Bob Jonas

A hidden landmark in modern Hong Kong

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A hidden landmark in modern Hong Kong

A sealed stone structure on Hong Kong Island’s southern shore has persisted through generations of speculation, while a nearby village’s role as its guardian fades with modernization. By 2010, a school occupies the site, yet the Old Cable House remains unexplained and overlooked. Two boys investigating it for a school assignment bring long-buried questions into contact with present-day conflicts over greed, lies, and power. The premise links a mysterious historical site with the consequences of curiosity, setting the story against changing Hong Kong and the legacy of a family empire.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Teens and young adults interested in historical fiction set in Asia.
  • Readers who enjoy mysteries involving unexplained places and long-running local questions.
  • Those drawn to stories about school research that becomes entangled with larger family and power struggles.

Themes

Hidden historiesModernization and memoryCuriosity and consequenceGreed and power

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Isolated on a beach at the southern tip of Hong Kong island, a building of unknown origin stands, slightly buried to an unknowable depth. Its girth is massive; twenty feet cubed-same in length, width, and height. Solid stone. A story that would reinforce any old fashioned, long forgotten truism: not everything of value can be seen or touched.

From what little had been uncovered about the Old Cable House (OCH), there was nothing to indicate the influence of other worldly connections. It was of this earth, man-made, construction circa, 1851. For over a century, it was impossible for one generation after another to believe a record of its existence was as invisible as the building itself. Growing questions-some mystical, some alien, some fantastical-never died out, completely. As the plausibility of desperately invented histories rose and fell, others were waiting to take their place.

Decades passed, the building remained, doors and windows were packed with reinforced cement. The unwanted role of a nearby village, to stand guard, slowly diminished under the onslaught of modernization. In modern times, dangerous histories involving greed, lies, and power, grew strongest of all.

It was during these modern times where everything changed dramatically in Hong Kong-with one exception. The year was 2010.

A school was built on the site where the stone building stood, enigmatic, ghost like, in plain sight. No plaque or commemorative reminders were left to explain its existence. When the school was done, after all the construction debris cleared away, the OCH remained invisible, in plain sight. A perfect, timeless conundrum.

For all those who had any connection to the stone building, it would be impossible to believe how the prying eyes of two overly inquisitive boys, fearless in their research for a school assignment, would ignite a series of events that would someday be responsible for the death of a family empire-not to mention the death of the researchers, their families, and anyone unlucky enough to support the boys in their quest.

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