by Paul French
First published 2019
Shanghai in the 1930s offers refuge to criminals and dreamers from across the globe. Jack Riley, an ex-Navy boxing champion who broke out of prison, arrives with nothing but ambition. He claws his way up to become the city's Slots King, controlling gambling operations across the sprawling badlands. Meanwhile, Joe Farren, a Jewish refugee who escaped Vienna's ghetto, transforms himself into "Dapper Joe" and builds a nightclub empire with chorus lines that rival the best of Broadway. By 1940, both men rule their domains like kings while poverty and war consume the city around them. Their Shanghai exists as a Solitary Island where fortunes rise and fall overnight, where new identities can be purchased, and where the desperate reinvent themselves daily. But the city that made their wildest dreams possible harbors its own plans for these self-made kings. As their empires reach their peak, Riley and Farren discover that Shanghai giveth and Shanghai taketh away, leaving destruction in its wake.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, crime
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, rise-and-fall, self-made
Setting: Shanghai
Period: 1930s, 1940
Paperback · Viking Australia
Content warnings: violence