Book description
Shanghai, 1926. A city of British Imperial civil servants, American
gun-runners, Russian princesses and Chinese gangsters, where heroin is
available on room service and everything is for sale. Exotic, sexually
liberated and pulsing with life, it is a place and time where anything
seems possible.
For Richard Field, it represents a brave new world away from the
past he is trying to escape. Seconded to the police force, his first
moment of active duty is a brutal crime scene. A young White Russian
woman, Lena Orlov, lies spreadeagled on her bed, sadistically
murdered. As he begins to peer through the glittering surface to the
murky depths beneath, Field sees a world beyond the glamour of the
city's expatriate life - a world where everything has its price, and
where human life is merely another asset to barter.
The key to the investigation seems to be Lena's neighbour, Natasha
Medvedev. But can Field trust someone for whom self-preservation is
the only goal? And is it wise to fall in love when there is every sign
that Natasha herself may be the next victim?
In a city where reality is a dangerous luxury, Field is driven into
the darkness beyond the dazzle of society to a world where the basest
of human needs are met and where the truth seems certain to be a fatal
commodity . . .
Tom Bradby has for the last eight years been a political and foreign
reporter for ITN, covering Ireland and South East Asia, and is now their
royal correspondent. He is the author of three acclaimed novels, Shadow
Dancer, The Sleep of the Dead and The Master of Rain and The White
Russian. He lives in England with his wife and three children.
