A review of ‘The Shanghai Circle’ by a member of the Online Book Club on the 17th of October 2023
4 out of 5 stars
Tony Henderson has done a brilliant job in writing the book The Shanghai Circle.
In just the 386 pages of the book, he has been able to describe the issues happening in Shanghai during Hitler’s reign and the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. He discussed the corruption of the government officials, in which he cited Chiang Kai Shek and Du’s relationship as an example. He also showed his readers how dangerous and calculative the triad could be when set on getting revenge and how unforgiving they could be when their rules are broken.
The book is a really nice one, in my opinion, because with his way of writing, he has been able to pique my interest in reading about Nazism(Hitler’s reign) and the history of Shanghai. Tony did a good job in the characters and plots. He made it seem so real, like it really happened, and he has a lot of unexpected twists in the ending of some characters like James Carr and Charles Guest, and he was also able to show that when people grow older, they become softer and much more approachable.
He described efficiently how the gangsters make their money, which was mostly through the selling of drugs and prostitution and how those working under them would gladly give favours to the collectors. He also perfectly described the relationship between the Asians, mostly Chinese and Americans. The description of the attraction of most Asian men to ladies with white skin and white men to ladies with Asian skin is nice.
Though it kinda breaks my heart that I was not able to read deeply about the east-west romance experience, I loved the fact that he made every important character in the book lose a member of their family either due to negligence (Joseph), natural disaster( Davina losing Charles) or the war with the Japanese(S.L losing Simone).
Tony was able to show that humans can do much more than what they think they can when they become desperate to survive by using Thomas and Wallace family as an example.
Tony’s recommendation of books to know more about the history of Shanghai is superb. But my favorite part of the book still remains the ending phrase, “East meets West”.