Cover image of "Shanghai," a thriller set in WW2 Shanghai

Uncle Nathan is a gangster, and Daniel’s father—a judge, no less—wants him to stay as far away as possible from his crooked brother. Then the problem solves itself. A disagreement—the kind you don’t walk away from alive for long—persuades Uncle Nate to leave Berlin for the United States. But that was more than a decade ago. And the last thing Daniel expects is to run into Nate in Shanghai when he steps off the boat there in 1939, a refugee from the Nazis. Which is how Daniel soon finds himself amid a sea of Chinese gangsters, White Russian thugs, Comintern agents, and the killers and torturers of the Kempeitei, the Japanese Gestapo. This is the scene Joseph Kanon sets in his most colorful thriller yet in WW2 Shanghai.

An intriguing cast of characters

Consider the cast of characters, and one that’s not nearly complete:

  • An American banker’s wife with a secret life
  • Chinese gang bosses in an uneasy truce
  • A young Jewish refugee woman desperate for the money to care for her dying mother
  • A Polish doctor with a sideline in the world of intrigue
  • The pro-Japanese American gossip columnist for the city’s most-read newspaper who’s growing rich from the stories he promises not to print
  • The corrupt and unfailingly polite head of Japanese security in the city

A reader with little knowledge of Shanghai in the 1930s might think these characters represent a caricature of the city. But this, indeed, was Shanghai in 1939. History tells us it was so.

Shanghai by Joseph Kanon (2024) 300 pages ★★★★★

Photo of the Bund in WW2 Shanghai
The Shanghai waterfront along the Bund in 1939, two years after the Japanese invasion of mainland China. Image: Mike Hanley – Medium

A love affair amid the turmoil

Daniel’s flight from Germany to China had been eventful indeed. Traveling first class on the Lloyd Line’s steamship Raffaello he had met a captivating young Jewish woman named Leah who was accompanying her mother. Strongly attracted to each other, Daniel and Leah ended up in bed in short order. Their on-again, off-again relationship once they reach Shanghai is central to the story. Kanon’s treatment of their love affair is beautifully done. But it unfolds amidst the turmoil of gangster-dominated Shanghai, under constant threat that the Japanese will tighten the noose and impose martial law. World War II has come to China with a vengeance, and the city is still reeling from the violence of the invasion two years earlier.

A Hollywood film scene of a casino in WW2 Shanghai
Hollywood’s version of an evening in a Shanghai casino in 1939. In reality, the gamblers would have been gangsters who often looked the part and wealthy Chinese who had accommodated to the Japanese occupation. Image: CineMaven

A new life in the world of shadows

Meanwhile, without other job prospects, Daniel has opted to throw in his lot with Uncle Nate. In Berlin, his uncle had owned and operated a night club. He’d grown rich from the gambling there. Now, in Shanghai, he owns not one but two clubs and is about to open a third. And he’d branched out into prostitution as well. Despite his distaste for the life of crime he’s heading into, Daniel proves to be a tough and adept operator in the world of shadows. As his uncle’s agent in running the new club and casino, he adroitly maneuvers in the treacherous space among the gangsters and Japanese thugs. But as the weeks go by the danger grows that both he and his uncle could well find themselves out in the cold. It will take every shred of cunning he can muster merely to survive.

About the author

Photo of Joseph Kanon, author of this thriller set in WW2 Shanghai
Joseph Kanon. Image: Alex Depeux – The Wall Street Journal

Before becoming a full-time writer, Joseph Kanon was a book publishing executive. He was the editor in chief, CEO, and president of the publishing houses Houghton Mifflin and E. P. Dutton in New York. His first novel, Los Alamos, published in 1997, was an international bestseller and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Shanghai is his eleventh novel.

Kanon was born in 1946 and studied at Harvard and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lives in New York City with his wife, literary agent Robin Straus. They have two sons.

You’ll find other books by the author at Joseph Kanon’s spy thrillers are superb.

You can learn a great deal about Shanghai during the time when this novel is set at these posts:

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