by Joseph Kanon
Daniel Lohr boards a Lloyd liner bound for Shanghai after barely escaping the Gestapo in 1938. His resistance colleagues weren't so fortunate. The Nazis seized his passport and assets, leaving him with nothing but an uncle waiting in China and a shipboard romance that grows serious during the voyage. Shanghai offers refuge to European Jews when every other port turns them away, but the city extracts its own price. Daniel arrives stateless and broke in a place where glamour masks corruption and murder passes for business as usual. His uncle operates in Shanghai's notorious nightlife scene, where politics and crime intertwine. To survive, Daniel must learn the rules of this treacherous world. Every choice forces him deeper into moral compromises he never imagined making. The city dances on the edge of war while Daniel discovers that escaping the past means confronting what he's willing to become.
Genres: historical-fiction, suspense, thriller, world-war-ii
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, moral-ambiguity
Setting: Shanghai, China, Europe
Period: 1938
Paperback
Content warnings: violence, war