Review
Could not put this book down. As good as Grisham
—Richard McCormack Amazon.com
Superbly researched, it beggars belief that Gangsters of Shanghai is not filling the shelves in bookshops. It certainly deserves to be a best-seller.
—David Lowther Amazon.UK (Author of ‘The Blue Pencil’)
This book is worth reading for its historical detail alone …. There’s an extremely well-drawn, accretive picture of just how surreal the International Settlement was. Wealthy Westerners line their balconies and watch vicious fighting just outside their borders as if it was sport …. We also see the grim experience of women on Bubbling Well Road. Subtle in his detail, the author refrains from judgment: women are brutalized but sometimes have agency …. —City Weekend, Shanghai
A crime drama that jumps back and forth between China and Ireland during the turbulent first third of the 20th Century …. This mystery thriller manages to provide more than enough well-rendered excitement to sustain readers’ attention.—Kirkus Reviews
Gerry O’Sullivan’s portrait of Jazz-Age Shanghai is pungent and lush …. Action shifts back and forth between Shanghai in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, and the slightly earlier Troubles in Ireland …. O’Sullivan’s rich descriptions and clearly extensive research brought both alive.—Underground Book Reviews
In December 2013 it reached the top ten in the Amazon ‘thrillers historical’ genre …. The main protagonist …. carrying the adventurer’s essential item of luggage, a broken heart, sets off to join the Shanghai Municipal Police …. One of the great strengths of this book is its credible atmosphere. Shanghai was a smouldering pit of corruption, poverty and hedonism, with a heaving and colourful nightlife.—Limerick Leader, Ireland.
About the Author
Gerry O'Sullivan was born in Limerick, Ireland, where he indulged his taste for historical fiction, intelligent action thrillers and adventure books. A graduate of the University of Limerick, he moved to Australia and worked in the international education sector. Gerry was inspired to write this action mystery by his granduncle, a Detective Inspector in the Shanghai Municipal Police during the 1920’s. Spellbound by old photographs and family lore, Gerry resolved to write an action adventure thriller with the accuracy of historical fiction. Gerry travelled to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brandeis University, Boston where the top-secret files of the Shanghai Municipal Police Special Branch are kept on microfilm (they were smuggled out of Shanghai by the CIA in 1949). Gerry then moved to Singapore to immerse himself in the atmosphere of a fast paced English-speaking Asian city, as Shanghai was in the 1920’s and 1930’s. To achieve the pulse-quickening features of an action mystery with the demandingly accurate details of historical fiction, Gerry blended his granduncle’s stories about his Shanghai police work, years of scholarly research, and his own experiences of the city.