In 2003, a riveting murder in the upper echelon of expat investment banking murder rocked Hong Kong. Nancy Kissell, the milkshake murderer, drugged her multi-millionaire investment banking husband with a milkshake given to him by his daughter, clubbed him to death using a lead statuette, and rolled him up in a carpet and stored him in their fancy Parkview apartment storage room.
A media darling instantly, the trial revealed the dirty little secrets of the expat investment banking life, where money corrupts beyond your wildest imagination. The story itself is a simple one, but the lifestyle is one that few people imagines possible. In 2006, a thirller-esque novel was written about the murder. The author cleverly describes the decadent lifestyle of Hong Kong. I pulled together a few quotes from the book that describe the world of expat bankers in Hong Kong.
"The highest priority of his employer was to assure that none of the untidy business of actually living in a foreign country would distract him from the avid pursuit of the riches. He was there to make gargantuan sums of money … and enrich himself even beyond the limits of socially acceptable greed, while living like the sultan of Brunei."
"It was much in the employer's interest, therefore, to make Hong Kong seem, insofar as possible, to be simply a post card. You could gaze upon the panorama from a skyscraper window and marvel at the human energy being expended down below, but you wouldn't have to hear it, smell it, taste it, or have it undermine your absurd but indispensable sense of self-worth. For what good to the firm was an investment banker with an inferiority complex?"
The story itself is an open and shut story. In fact, after weeks of trial, the jury only book 8 hours to convict. However, the illusion, the idea, and the lofty lifestyle of the expat bankers are real and complete. Read the book not for its plot, for everyone already knows the story. Read it if you want a glimpse of the world here.
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