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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.
—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.
Review:
4.7 out of 5
93.85% of customers are satisfied
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging
I enjoyed this read. Found it very engaging and the flow between Ireland and Shanghai was in its own way revealing. Well written and well researched with a sound basis on history.
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read
I was not aware of the troubles in Singapore at this time. How ignorant of me.Very insightful and the intrigue,mystery of the story made it such a turn pager.
5.0 out of 5 stars Fact and Fiction in Old Shanghai. A great read
Amazing to think this novel is 10 years old yet has not been picked up to become a best seller.A really atmospheric read with lots of action.
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read.
As somebody who once lived in Shanghai and knows all the places and people in the story it was a very good read.
4.0 out of 5 stars An exciting tale
A really good take ,,exciting and very informative. I enjoy a good read when I know that I have learned more about the world in which we live. My favourite kind of book a good story based on real events.
5.0 out of 5 stars A CRACKING THRILLER SET IN THE MURKY DEPTHS OF PRE-WAR SHANGHAI
Gangsters of Shanghai is an exciting adventure story written by Gerry O'Sullivan.The central character is Michael Gallagher who has fled from the troubled Ireland of the 1920s following his father's death and joined the Municipal Police in Shanghai. We follow him through the nineteen twenties to the eve of the Second World War as he, and the city, sink ever deeper into the depths of corruption.The author uses time and location switch very cleverly as episodes in Ireland shown in flashback help the reader to understand Michael's behaviour and reactions to circumstances to people he meets on Shanghai's crime infested streets.Gangsters of Shanghai is fully of fascinating and surprising characters, including some very nasty villains, who are exceptionally well- drawn and they share top billing with the city itself which is brilliantly described. Set against the background of the Sino-Japanese and the early stages of the Chinese Civil War, Shanghai appears as a city of great contrasts between extreme wealth and poverty and a city of international degradation. My previous knowledge of the city comes from movies such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ang Lee's Lust Caution and Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, all of which showed Shanghai as a significant international city but not as the sink of crime and corruption it really was.Superbly researched, it beggars belief that Gangsters of Shanghai is not filling the shelves in bookshops. It certainly deserves to be a best-seller.
4.0 out of 5 stars Pageturner
Paints an evocative picture of 1920's Shanghai and the trials and tribulations of an young lad from Ireland getting to grips with both the city & life's vicissitudes. A real insight into life beyond the exterior glamour & excitement of the city. Novel was read too soon. If you try it you'll buy it!
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing gripping read
I as looked on kindle app and spotted the cover and though what that about. started reading the sample and i was hooked what a amazing gem of a read i was gripped even was telling my wife about the things that happened in the book but over all buy it top read brilliant 👏
Brings Shanghai history to life
Having read extensively on Shanghai between the wars, I can attest this novel brings to life a very interesting time in world history. Absorbing historical fiction.
An Eastern Game of Ghosts
Gerry O'Sullivan has written a nuanced and seamless novel, following the life and fate of a young Irish recruit in the 1930's Shanghai police.From the opening page onwards, a combination of deft description and original, startling images ensures the reader is compelled to keep turning the pages of "Gangsters of Shanghai", yet is also bound to linger amid the sights, sounds and smells of the city that the author evokes.The protagonist, Michael Gallagher, makes a convincing narrator, and his story comprises a quest to reclaim lost love, and also find his own path through the corruption and chaos of the hip ("hai pai") demi-monde of East Asia's jazz age metropolis. His mission is akin to that of Jay Gatsby, and at times O'Sullivan's prose comes close to the bitter-sweet melancholy strains of Scott-Fitzgerald's pen, although the impeccably timed verbal choreography of the action sequences in this book also recall the auteur-ship of Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", not least in recalling a violent denouement and its tropes of rescue and recovery, time not quite recovered, memories and their hope for restoration and an innocence not entirely lost.O'Sullivan also employs tropes from the classics, as evidenced in the flashback scenes that recall Dickensian shades of childhood and youth - think Pip at Miss Havisham's with Estella opening the Book of Changes, or "I-Ching". Change and destiny alike inform how the chips fall and delineate a path that extends from the progenitors of modern Ireland to the eponymous mafiosi and their seaport in the East. This compelling way winds through the streets of charm and cruelty, and remains open-ended: but how - is what I would urge readers to find out for themselves."Gangsters of Shanghai" works its myths and magic on many levels: meticulously researched historical detail, depiction of scenes that switches between the shocking and the sensual, and a classic entertainment, interwoven with veins of literary finesse.It represents true accomplishment and is hIghly recommended. This reviewer feels confident that no reader will regret time spent between its sheets, and awaits O'Sullivan's next work with due anticipation.
Gangsters of Shangaï :step in their stories
The action takes place in the pre-world war 2 period. Shangaï was an international city. Some districts had their own laws and police. This book is extremely well documented, about a time and place rarely described in novels. Moreover actions are face paced and breath taking. A truly "must read".
Spannende Story und faszinierendes Zeitgemälde
Die chinesische Stadt Shanghai befand sich in den Dreißigerjahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts in einer ganz besonderen politischen und sozialen Situation. Während im größten Teil der Metropole die chinesische Polizei (mehr oder weniger) für Ordnung sorgte, existierten daneben außerdem noch ein französisches Viertel sowie ein International Settlement - jeweils mit eigener Exekutive. Im letztgenannten Stadtteil schiebt ein junger erlebnishungriger irischer Cop namens Gallagher Dienst. Die Abenteuerlust hat ihn in den Fernen Osten getrieben, aber auch der Wunsch nach Vergessen - sowohl sein Vater als auch seine erste Liebe Fiona wurden im irischen Bürgerkrieg 1920 getötet.Shanghai war zu jener Zeit offenbar ein Eldorado des Gangstertums, und auch innerhalb der Polizei gibt es Kräfte, die ein Stück vom Kuchen abbekommen wollen. Gallagher erliegt den Einflüsterungen der Korruptionsverführer: "No peeler on the beat ever got rich."Doch dann taucht plötzlich die totgeglaubte Fiona in Shanghai auf - oder ist sie nur ein Geist aus der Vergangenheit?Ich will nicht vorgreifen, aber an diesem Roman stimmt einfach alles - knallharte Action und bewegende Emotion, Recherche und überraschende Wendungen, farbige Charaktere und profundes Hintergrund-Wissen.Einziger Kritikpunkt wäre, dass es diesen Thriller bisher nur im englischen Original gibt - aber wenn die Story gut ist, würde ich einen Roman notfalls auch auf Chinesisch lesen ;-)
Early days in Shanghai
It’s interesting to read about the warfare that occurred in the early 1900’s in Shanghai - especially if you’ve travelled and spent time there. I delighted in reading about streets I’d walked where criminal activities were rife etc!
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Gangsters of Shanghai
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Product origin: United Kingdom
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