A review of ‘The Shanghai Circle’ by a member of the Online Book Club on the 29th of October 2023
3 out of 5 stars
The book amazingly doesn’t have even one typo. The narrative is fluid, entertaining, devoid of profanity or explicit sex scenes. The story is set in Shanghai and, at the end, in Hong Kong, at the time when the Roaring 30’s came abruptly to an end with the Japanese invasion of China.
The reviewer has been, like the author, an expat in Asia for more than 30 years, albeit in different decades. Therefore, I can vouch for the accuracy of all descriptions of Shanghai in the 30’s: the opulent foreign trading houses, the culture clash, the Chinese mafia (Triads), the squalor of a destitute humanity that every day lives and dies in the filthy streets and swamps of Shanghai.
The city offers all sorts of debauchery and vice at night: opium dens, nightclubs, brothels, sailor bars, prostitutes of all kinds, race and age, to fulfil the most illicit desires. All this is the domain of the Triads, who control people and money in a violent, ruthless way.
The reader gets to learn how one of the most important gangs in the city, the Sung, operates and fights for survival against their main rival, the Green secret society, led by the ultra-villain Du Tue-sheng (who indeed existed and was the most feared gangster of the time).
During the day, the city is a vibrant mess of trade and business. Everyone is there to make money. The harbor is busy with large ships and Chinese junks, the streets are jammed with cars, carts and rickshaws, the noise is deafening. In this expertly painted scenario, we are introduced to two young Englishmen, Thomas and James, sent to Shanghai to work for a British trading company.
The two newly arrived expats are fresh in Shanghai, and their approach, influenced by their social standings back home, is different from the very beginning and ultimately will determine the success of one and the demise of the other. All the characters involved are linked together because of their family’s businesses. Their stories develop quite fast, and the reader is taken to the end of the book.
The environment where everything happens is described with an abundance of details and is historically very precise. Having read quite a lot about the time before World War II in China, I can vouch for the author’s accuracy. Hotels, companies, banks, night-clubs, people and street names are real. Some of the places mentioned are still standing at present. The Japanese bombing of Shanghai by the Japanese and the typhoon which devastated Hong Kong with a fury never seen ever since have indeed happened.
The main characters personalities transpire slowly, as the dialogues are, in my humble opinion, a bit unreal. The characters basically speak all in the same way, using a kind of sterilized language, even in life-or-death situations. Spicier, or maybe differently toned dialogues, with a bit more of attitude, will surely make the main actors come out stronger and more realistic. And push this novel into the very good book category, while now it’s unfortunately in the better-than-average one. Anyhow, this book will surely fascinate and absorb readers who are interested in novels set in Asia.