Invisible Helix by Keigo Higashino, and Shanghai by Joseph Kanon, Historical Novel set in the late 1930s.

 

The Invisible Helix by Keigo Higashino, December 17, 2024; Minotaur Books/NetGalley

Genre: detective novel, Tokyo

The body of Ryota Uetsuji was found floating in Tokyo Bay, and a suspect is his girlfriend Sonoka, but Sonoka was away in Kyoto at the time of the death and has an alibi. 

The themes of adoption and finding one's family years later is prevalent. The themes found in Sonoka's story of adoption are also threaded into the story of a police consultant, the brilliant physicist Yukawa. Misguided and misinformed individuals also make mistaken assumptions in this compelling story of family connections. 

I enjoyed the storyline and the easy way of writing by Higashino that made this detective novel enjoyable and also suspenseful. Another excellent book by Higashino and the fifth in the Detective Galileo series.

Shanghai by Joseph Kanon, June 25, 2024; Scribner

Genre: historical fiction, thriller, China

I just started this historical novel of Shanghia before WWII in the late 1930s. Daniel Lohr has escaped Germany on a boat heading for China, where refugees from the Nazis in Europe can find safety if they find their own way there.

Daniel meets another Jewish refugee, Leah and her mother Clara, on the ship heading east. He also meets a member of the Japanese military police, Colonel Yamada, who is keeping a close watch on the ship's passengers, all heading to Shanghai's international settlement, a section not under the control of the Japanese who invaded Shanghai and parts of China in 1937. 

The history of refugees in Shanghai from all over Europe and even from Russia has been covered in historical fiction and memoirs, and nonfiction. Kanon's book is the latest and I am reading it with interest in that period in China.

Update: my review of Shanghai.

Some other books I've read on Shanghai in the 1930s include:

Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China by Susan Blumberg-Kasoff

The Jewish salon host in 1930s Shanghai who brought together Chinese and expats around the arts as civil war erupted and World War II loomed on the horizon. (publisher)

The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla

 In November 1938 after a night of terror for Jews across Germany, Dr. Franz Adler, a surgeon in Vienna, flees to Shanghai, China with his young daughter Hannah and his brother's widow, Esther. 

The Far Side of the Sky focuses on a short but extraordinary period of Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish history when cultures converged and heroic sacrifices were part of a quest for survival. (publisher)

White Shanghai by Elvira Baryakina. The title refers to the White Russians, those fleeing the "Reds," the Russian revolution. 

Among the refugees is Klim Rogov, a journalist whose life and marriage have been destroyed by the Russian revolution - all he has left are his quick wits and a keen worldliness that will serve him well in the lawless jungle of Shanghai.  (publisher)

China to Me by Emily Hahn, a memoir.

 The American journalist/traveler Emily Hahn wrote about her own experiences living in Shanghai, Chungking, and Hong Kong from 1935 to 1943. Her book about revolution and war in China and how it affected the local people and foreigners alike is titled China to Me: A Partial Autobiography, first printed in 1944. It's fascinating reading.

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. October 30, 2001, Knopf Doubleday Publishing

My 2017 review: 

"A book I have wanted to look at again. Set in the 1930s, it's about a young English detective with a faulty memory who returns to wartime Shanghai in 1937 to find his parents who had disappeared there years ago when he was about nine years old. As he is an unreliable narrator, readers have to figure out the puzzle of his past and become detectives themselves to decide what is fact and what is fiction.  Christopher meets a Japanese soldier in Shanghai who may or may not be his playmate from years ago, before the war. How Christopher reacts or doesn't react to him and how he ignores his surroundings in Shanghai during the Japanese invasion is part of his strange, delusional persona. This book intrigued me so much, I want to try again to get the hard facts of Christopher's journey, which may not be possible, given his inaccurate memory. Ishiguro, born in Nagasaki, Japan and now a British citizen living in London, is also author of The Remains of the Day, a Booker Prize-winning novel made into the award winning film with Anthony Hopkins." I'll just add now that on reading it again the past two days, I found the narrator Christopher to be a kind of English/European version of the Ugly American, representing the tunnel vision that ignored the reality of what was going on in Shanghai before and during WWII. These are some of the books I read or featured on my blog about Shanghai pre and during WWII. I would suggest looking at some of them before reading Kanon's book, Shanghai , as Kanon seems to assume his readers of the novel will already know the history.  What books are you reading this week?  Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves

Book Review: The Nine Fold Heaven by Mingmei Yip

Title: The Nine Fold Heaven by Mingmei Yip
Published June 25, 2013; Kensington
Genre: historical fiction
Objective rating: 4/5

The unemotional Skeleton Woman of Yip's previous novel, Camilla, trained from childhood to be an assassin, slowly becomes a more compassionate woman in this novel as she searches for her child and his father, risking death by returning to gang-ridden Shanghai from her safe haven in Hong Kong.

This book is a worthy follow-up to the story of the three Skeleton women who survive dangerous odds in the Shanghai of the 1930s in the previous book, Skeleton Women (see my review).  I enjoyed descriptions of the setting and the pithy Chinese sayings that the author weaves through her stories to illustrate the truths of life. Well written and entertaining, I recommend both books.

Watch the dramatic and colorful trailer for The Nine Fold Heaven.

Thanks to the author for a review copy of this book.

The Ninefold Heaven: a Novel by Mingmei Yip

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and The Friday 56 by Freda's Voice. Share the beginning of a book you are reading and select a quote from page 56. Include the title and author of the book for readers.

Title: The Ninefold Heaven by Mingmei Yip
Published June 25, 2013; Kensington
Genre: historical fiction

Prologue:

Three months ago, I was singing to loud applause in a Shanghai nightclub; a few days later, I became unexpectedly wealthy. But immediately I fled Shanghai in a fusillade of bullets to hide out in a run-down apartment in Hong Kong. 

Page 56: 

I felt a wave of anxiety. Was it coincidence this man asked for my signature song, or had he seen through my disguise?

Publisher's description:
 Mingmei Yip draws readers deeper into the exotic world of 1930s Shanghai first explored in her book, Skeleton Women, and into the lives of three unforgettable women: Camilla, Shadow, and Rainbow Chang.

When Shadow, a gifted, ambitious magician, competed with the beautiful Camilla for the affections of organized crime leader Master Lung, she almost lost everything. Hiding out in Hong Kong, performing in a run-down circus, Shadow has no idea that Camilla, too, is on the run with her lover, Jinying--Lung's son. Now their only hope of freedom lies in joining forces to eliminate the ruthless Big Brother Wang.

Despite the danger, Shadow, Camilla, and Jinying return to Shanghai. Camilla also has her own secret agenda--she has heard a rumor that her son is alive. And in a city teeming with spies and rivals--including the vengeful Rainbow Chang--each battles for a future in a country on the verge of monumental change.

From the opening sentences and the excerpt, what is your impression? See my review of the first book, Skeleton Women/ I'm looking forward to this follow-up.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of this book. 

White Shanghai by Elvira Baryakina

"Would you teach me to drink tea," Nina asked.
"Without a doubt."
Daniel knew so much about Chinese and Japanese art. He could talk for hours about special ways of manufacturing bone china, arranging gardens,ancient poetry and ink drawing. He was a person of such rate talents that Nina wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. (ch. 18)

Comments: This period in Shanghai's history fascinates me. The city was overrun with refugees from all over the world, during the time when the Chinese themselves were undergoing similar hardships and political turmoil.

Book description:  A melting pot of different nations, fused by war and commerce, this was the Shanghai of the 1920s. The Great Powers are greedily exploiting China for its cheap labor and reaping the cruel rewards of the opium trade. However, as ships carrying the remnants of the defeated Russian White Army enter Shanghai, the uneasy balance of this frenetic international marketplace comes under threat.

Among the refugees is Klim Rogov, a journalist whose life and marriage have been destroyed by the Russian revolution - all he has left are his quick wits and a keen worldliness that will serve him well in the lawless jungle of Shanghai. He finds work as a reporter in a British-run newspaper, rubbing shoulders with international gangsters while defying the intrigues of sinister communist agents, clinging to the hope that someday he'll be reunited with his wife, Nina.

This complete English translation of Elvira Baryakina's White Shanghai reflects the greatest traditions of the Russian classics. The official website of the book is http://whiteshanghai.com. There you can find beautiful illustrations, maps, vintage photographs and much more."

Title: White Shanghai: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties in China by Elvira Baryahina
Published January 10, 2013; Glasoslav
Genre: historical novel set in Shanghai, Russia, and Bejing
Source: review copy from publisher/publicist

Other books to read about wartime Shanghai include China to Me, a partial autobiography by American journalist, Emily Hahn.

Book Review: Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip

Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip

>Title: Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip
Paperback; May 25, 2012; Kensington Publishing
Source: author, for review
Objective rating: 4.5/5

About the book:In Mingmei Yip's novel set in 1930s Shanghai, Skeleton Women refer to women who are trained spies, beautiful assassins and courtesans who seduce their male victims in order to eventually turn them into skeletons of death.

And yet, the orphan Camilla, who was trained to be such a deceiver by her boss Master Wang, finds it difficult to dispose of Wang's rival Master Lung as she is ordered to do. She must first find out all Lung's financial secrets and where he stores his important papers and bank books. This is gang rivalry after all, and Wang intends to be the top man in Shanghai after defeating and disposing of his main rival, through his master spy, Camilla.

There are two other well known Skeleton Women in the book - a gossip columnist Rainbow Chang and a magician, Shadow. Shadow and Camilla, whose talent is as a singer known as the Heavenly Songstress, compete to be the best known celebrity for talent and beauty and both rely on Rainbow Chang to promote them in her newspaper column.

The novel is about the relationship between these skeleton women and about Camilla's increasing discomfort with her role as a virtual slave to Master Wang to spy and then assassinate, and being in the middle of the tug of war between Wang and Master Lung, who she must keep deceiving while she ferrets out his financial and gangland activities. There are other conflicts, namely her personal love life and growing emotional attachment to another, younger man.

My comments:The author quotes extensively from two Chinese classics by Sun Tzu, written more than 2,000 years ago - The Art of War and the essay The Thirty-Six Stratagems, which is described as "an essay used to illustrate a series of stratagems used in politics, war, as well as in civil interaction, often through unorthodox or deceptive means." Although Sun Tzu probably wrote for men, the author's character Camilla knows these works very well and uses the advice and strategies for her own means.

The novel is peppered throughout with Chinese sayings or aphorisms that reflect Camilla's own dilemmas, her observation of people or situations, and her plan of action.

Some of the sayings:

"If you pay enough, you can make a dead man turn a millstone." 

"When the rabbits are caught, the hounds are cooked." 

"...tiehan rouqing, an iron man with tender sentiments."

What also made this book enjoyable to read was the author's frequent inclusion of famous Chinese poetry and songs, words that mirror or reflect her feelings or situation. I wish I could include some of them here, but there are too many.

One question that I do have about the plot: If Camilla is known as a skeleton woman, why is she kept and trusted by her patron Master Lung, whom she has vowed to destroy? Even though he has his bodyguard search her every time she enters his bedroom, still he must have been taking a big chance!
I also liked that Camilla gradually changes from being callous and unfeeling to developing genuine love and feelings of human friendship as her life story goes on. How she deals with the twin rocks of disaster between which she is caught is the tension that also kept my interest in the novel.

A book I highly recommend for those interested in women's fiction, historical fiction, romance, and the poetry, and some of the classics of Chinese literature.

Learn more about the author at her websiteMingmei Yip and on her blog.

Book Review: Kitchen Chinese: A Novel about Food, Family, and Finding Yourself by Ann Mah

Kitchen Chinese: A Novel About Food, Family, and Finding Yourself by Ann Mah (Feb. 1, 2010)

Summary: Isabelle Lee is forced to leave her job as an editorial assistant at a swank New York magazine and decides to try her luck in Beijing, where her older sister Claire is practicing law. The two sisters were never very close but Claire invites Isabelle to stay in her spacious modern apartment in Beijing, and helps her get a job as a food writer for an English language magazine, Beijing NOW.

Claire gives her advice on how to interview a famous Chinese film director:Isabelle feels like a fish out of water as she doesn't speak Mandarin well, has no friends in the city, and still feels intimidated by her older sister, the successful Ivy League graduate and lawyer who has fulfilled all their parents' expectations, except one, that is. The sisters feel the pressure of their parents, even in far away Beijing, to marry a Han Chinese and provide grandchildren as soon as possible.

You don't know how I appreciate this, " I say in a rush.
In the car, Claire issues advice while simultaneously checking her BlackBerry, scanning the newspaper, and smoothing on another coat of lipstick. "Just be casual," she says, her voice as instructive as Dear Abby. "Men don't like it when women are too aggressive. Especially Chinese guys."

How the sisters deal with their parents, how Isabelle handles Beijing, her job writing on regional Chinese food,  and the attentions of Jeff, a Chinese rock singer, as well as the interest of a mysterious young American neighbor, Charlie, are the meat of the novel.

Comments: I loved traveling with Isabelle to places in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang to try out different styles of Chinese food. Her descriptions of the different kinds of "hot" in spicy Sechuan food made me want to try mapo tofu, bean curd cooked in hot chili oil. (The recipe is included in the back of the book, along with a few other dishes.)Here Isabelle takes her American friend Julia to breakfast in Hong Kong:

The conversation falters as we nibble dainty dumplings filled with shrimp peeping pale and pink through their translucent wrappers. We dive into plates of soy-sauce-scented rice noodles, unwrap bamboo leaves to reveal triangles of sticky rice....
"The food here is amazing. So fresh!" says Julia, her voice soft with awe. This is the best dimsum I've ever had. Ooh!" she exclaims, flagging down a passing cart. "Chicken feet!"

 I enjoyed Ann Mah's writing and the way she combined setting and regional cuisine in her story of the two Chinese-American sisters. I could relate to demands or expectations of parents, and the sometimes testy relationship between a younger and older sibling - these seem to be universal.

About the author: Ann Mah was born in California and lived in Beijing for four years, working as a dining manager for an English-language magazine. She was awarded a James Beard Culinary Scholarship in 2005 and now lives in Paris.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge
Cym Lowell: Book Review Party Wednesday

Sunday Salon: A Book and a Half

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

Three more days to enter the contest for Whiter than Snow by Sandra Dallas, thanks to the Book Report Network.
Here's the link: Book Give-Away

I managed only a book and a half last week. It's been hectic.
I reviewed the galley of The Queen of Patpong: A Poke Rafferty Thriller by Timothy Hallinan, a first-rate suspense novel set in Bangkok that will be out in August. Here's the review.

I'm half-way through The Time Of The Dragons by Alice Ekert Rotholz, translated from the German, set in Asia before and during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and the countries of Southeast Asia. I had mentioned in an earlier post that I  wanted to see a German perspective of the war in Asia. Here's what I wrote on the post of a blogger who reviewed the book:

"I'm half way through the book, printed in 1958 by Viking Press. Really interesting novel about a Norwegian consul in Shanghai in the mid-1920s and his daughters who go back and forth to China before the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. Interesting also that the author warns about watching Asians in the future, especially "Japanese, Chinese, and Indians" and their future influence in the world. (This was written in 1958) . Her book goes into the Japanese part of WWII, but Germany is mentioned only briefly. She says nothing at all about the German quest for world power during the same war. Interesting omission, since this was written only 13 or so years after WWII, and by a German author who would have had fresh memories of the war in Europe."

I love old books and old historical fiction and what we can learn from them.

I became interested in the WWII period of Asian history from reading a partial autobiography, China to Me by Emily Hahn, published in 1944.  Hahn was an American journalist and a prolific writer who spent the years before and during the Japanese occupation in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chungking and experienced the war there first hand. Hers I find a fascinating journalist's view of people and events there. So much so that I am hooked on books written on this period in Chinese history.

Well, back to finishing that interesting German author's novel on WWII in Asia, for which I have a hot and cold reaction! I will have more time in August to read and review as I have decided to ease back into retirement. Missed the blogging :)

What did you do last week?

Book Review: Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong

Red Mandarin Dress: An Inspector Chen Novel (Inspector Chen Cao) In the fifth mystery in the series by Qiu Xiaolong, Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau reluctantly puts aside his studies of classical Chinese literature to help solve the sensational Red Mandarin Dress murders.

Three young women have been found in public locations in the city, each dressed in a torn red mandarin dress. Inspector Chen and police officer Yu race against time to solve their murders before the serial killer can find another victim.

Chen and Yu visit libraries and interview expert tailors and people knowledgeable about the old style mandarin dresses. They link the dresses back to the period of the Cultural Revolution.

Using the information he gathers, Chen uses modern psychology to create a profile of the killer, at the same time as he analyses each situation with relevant quotes from Tang and Sung poetry and sayings from the sage Confucius.

I enjoyed reading about the detailed police procedures used to solve the crime in modern day Shanghai. I also found interesting the author's distaste for some aspects of the past, namely the Cultural Revolution and its lingering effects, and the "cruel" cuisine that is still practised by some cooks and demanded by patrons.