TAIPAN MEETS TRIAD IN PRE-WAR SHANGHAI
The Shanghai Circle is the first book in the Chinese Circles series. A taipan, a triad leader and a beautiful White Russian find their lives intertwined as Japan threatens Shanghai in 1936.
Davina Guest, a young and feisty Taipan, must help steer the family trading house through tumultuous times. The imminent Japanese invasion and the rise of communism threaten her beloved company, but unbeknown to her another deadly menace lurks in the shadows.
As heir to the Sung Society, Joseph Cheung must learn the ways of the triad. Vice and violence dominate Shanghai’s criminal world but for Joseph, a personal vendetta remains unfinished business.
Irina, a young beautiful stateless Russian woman, unwittingly falls into the clutches of the triads and fights to escape.
It’s 1936, and Shanghai, the Paris of the East, plays backdrop to the drama, as these characters find their lives are circling each other in a dangerous world.
Stella Wong introduces her book, Shanghai, The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City with these words:
“In Shanghai’s prime, no city in the Orient, or the world for that matter, could compare with it. At the peak of its spectacular career, the swamp-ridden metropolis surely ranked as the most pleasure-mad, rapacious, corrupt, strife-ridden, licentious, squalid and decadent city in the world.
It was the most pleasure-mad because nowhere else did the population pursue amusement, from feasting to whoring, dancing to powder-taking, with such abandoned zeal. It was rapacious because greed was its driving force. Strife-ridden because calamity was always at the door. Licentious because it catered to every depravity known to man. Squalid because misery stared brazenly in the face. Decadent because morality, as every Shanghai resident knew, was irrelevant.”
This book describes the city as it was in 1936 as the Japanese were fighting across China to capture the flawed jewel, which was Shanghai. It is the setting for the first part of my novel, as my characters escape to Hong Kong in 1937,
It is available as an eBook or paperback on Amazon. Some links – US, UK, Spain, Canada, Australia,
If you’re interested in learning more about the period, Fact and Fiction will answer some questions. Click through to Photos for some poignant images of the times, the city and those who lived there. In Acknowledgements I thank people and organisations that have helped me write this novel.