James Zimmerman, a partner in the Beijing office of international law firm Perkins Coie LLP, is regarded as one of Asia’s top business lawyers. In April, Public Affairs, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, published his first non-legal book, The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole A Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China. In it, Zimmerman recounts a 1923 hostage crisis in which dozens of Chinese and Western travelers were kidnapped in a daring raid on China’s most luxurious train line and held captive by a bandit army in rural Shandong province. The Lincheng Incident, as it was called, dragged on for over a month, sparking an international crisis. Eventually, Zimmerman argues, the incident led to the downfall of China’s young Republican government and laid the ground for the Chinese Communist Party’s rise. Outside of writing, Zimmerman represents high-profile legal cases in China, primarily for the foreign traditional and social media. James Zimmerman.