Shanghai Secrets

November 23, 2020
Set in 1935, Gentill’s rousing ninth Rowland Sinclair mystery (after 2020’s A Dangerous Language) takes Rowly, on his brother Wilfred’s instructions, to Shanghai for trade talks involving the family wool business. “Just listen and be pleasant. For God’s sake, don’t sign anything,” Wilfred tells him, adding, “Take your unemployed lefty friends with you, if you must.” Thus self-proclaimed poet Milton Isaacs, landscape painter Clyde Watson Jones, and nascent filmmaker Edna Higgins accompany Rowly to the “Paris of the East,” where they rub shoulders with English lawyers, Chinese gangsters, Russian nobility, Japanese businessmen, and Indian taxi drivers. Rowly runs afoul of the police when Alexandra Romanovna, a beautiful Russian dancer, is found with her throat cut in his hotel suite, leaving him with no choice but to investigate. Rowly and his pals soon discover any number of people with motive to murder Alexandra. Eccentric but authentic characters bolster a cracking good plot. Gentill captures in telling detail a political, moral, and cultural milieu.

January 1, 2021
A carefree cadre of Australian artists probe a shocking murder in war-torn 1935 Shanghai. Despite his status as the family's renegade, suave Sydney artist Rowland Sinclair is tapped by his starchy elder brother, Wilfred, to go to Shanghai to handle international wool negotiations for Sinclair Holdings. Intrigued by the city's vibrancy and turmoil, Rowland's friends--poet Milton Isaacs, artist Clyde Watson Jones, and sculptress and model Edna Higgins--accompany him and take up residence in the posh Cathay Hotel. Gentill opens each chapter with a short news item from the time, adding welcome context to the story by describing the dangerous encroachment of Japan, the threat of Communism, and the influx of Russian refugee women and German Jews, weaving each development into the story. Making lively banter and diving into local culture are high on the visitors' agenda. On a night out at The Jazz Club, Rowland dances twice with beautiful Russian Alexandra Romanova, and they make a date for tea the following afternoon. The next day, he's horrified to discover Alexandra's corpse in his suite. Grim Inspector Randolph regards him as the prime suspect. Rowland's peril, coupled with the deep grief of Alexandra's brother, Sergei, prompts the party to investigate, leading to even more elaborate explorations of Shanghai. A subplot that should delight series fans brings Rowland and Edna within a whisker of progressing from the friendship zone to unabashed romance. A frothy retro cocktail with a whodunit chaser.

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December 17, 2020
When Rowland Sinclair is sent from Sydney to Shanghai on business, he and his languid hangers-on at first inhabit the anglicized, rarefied bubble of the city's famed Cathay Hotel. The rougher side of the city comes crashing in, however, when a "taxi girl," a young woman paid to dance with guests at the hotel, is found murdered in their suite. Was the Russian woman, who previously claimed to be Anastasia Romanov, the intended victim? And how can Sinclair prove his innocence? This ninth in the series (after A Dangerous Language, 2020) evocatively re-creates 1930s Shanghai, with its clash of international wealth and local traditions, and with the looming Nazi threat on the horizon. Gentill exposes the thoughts of Chinese characters about their colonizers, highlighting the exoticization of Asians by their "betters." This alone makes the book stand out, but readers will also relish the murder mystery and the intermittent fictional news articles about the time, which bring to life an ebullient if naive era. For fans of the series and those who like stories that juxtapose the haves against the have-nots.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.