“Historical fiction at its best.” —Alan Cheuse,All Things Considered
Sailing to Shanghai in 1936, Thomas Greene goes from playing classical piano for pennies in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with his own servants, the leader of a black jazz orchestra. Song Yuhua has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai’s toughest crime boss, but risks her life spying on him for the Communist Party. With Shanghai shattered by the Japanese invasion, Thomas and Song find one another and forge a bond neither can deny. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and war, they navigate the city’s growing dangers until the moment when they must cast their lots inNight in Shanghai’s final, impossible choice.
A new novel by the author of
The Last Chinese Chef, a love story between a black musician and a gangster's translator set against Shanghai’s dazzling jazz age and the looming menace of World War II, and a rich and thoroughly captivating read. (Gail Tsukiyama, author of
The Samurai’s Garden)
"Both of them young and awkward, but gifted and smart, [Thomas and Song] make for an odd but brilliant pair of lovers. They light up the pages of this novel....Night in Shanghai, an intelligent historical romance, shows off with forceful insight, terrific characters, and a telling sense of detail. And, folks, it swings." —Alan Cheuse,All Things Considered
“You readNight in Shanghaiimpressed by its meticulous research and drawn in by its sweep—those crowded, humid Shanghai streets seem to live and breathe.” —Seattle Times
“This thrilling, sexy novel reveals some little-known facts from that time. The strands of the story weave together as the themes and rhythms of the jazz her protagonist plays.” —Christian Science Monitorl#|
![Night in Shanghai [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/7/0/3/2_451267.jpg)