Night in Shanghai - Paperback

by Nicole Mones (Author)

From 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)

"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 in Night in Shanghai's final, impossible choice.

Front Jacket

In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African-American expats. From being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, he becomes the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war.
Song Yuhua is refined, educated, and bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai s most powerful crime boss in payment for her father s gambling debts. Outwardly submissive, she burns with rage and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party.
Only when Shanghai is shattered by the Japanese invasion do Song and Thomas find their way to each other. Though their union is forbidden, neither can back down from it in the turbulent years of occupation and resistance that follow. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and world war, they are borne on an irresistible riff of melody and improvisation to Night in Shanghai s final, impossible choice.
In this impressively researched novel, Nicole Mones not only tells the forgotten story of black musicians in the Chinese Jazz age, but also weaves in a stunning true tale of Holocaust heroism little-known in the West.

Back Jacket

A sweeping story of music, love, race, and war, by the award-winning author of The Last Chinese Chef
With a magician's sleight of hand, Nicole Mones conjures up the jazz-filled, complex, turbulent world of Shanghai just before World War II. Mones has recreated a feast for the senses, transporting us to the rich, decadent city in which the lives and loves of expatriate musicians intertwine with the growing tensions between the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, while the ominous threats from the Japanese stir the winds of war. A rich and thoroughly captivating read. Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai s Garden and A Hundred Flowers
Every page in Mones's compelling, sexy, and richly textured novel reveals some custom, some costume, some trick of language that exposes a fascinating moment in history the Japanese invasion of Shanghai on the eve of World War II. Mones weaves the multiple strands of her story much the way themes and melodies are woven into the jazz her protagonist plays, with subtle and suggestive undertones of human greed, power, and passion. Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin

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Author Biography

NICOLE MONES is the prize-winning author of three previous novels, The Last Chinese Chef, Lost in Translation, and A Cup of Light, which have been published in more than twenty-five countries.