Customer Reviews

The Shanghai Murders : A Mystery of Love and Ivory

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

A librarian friend recommended this to me and with good reason. It has all the ingredients I look for: exotic setting; intriguing characters; gory deaths; smooth, tight writing style; interesting tidbits of information; heartbreak; and a healthy dose of humor. A perfect reading experience.

I am astounded at the negative reviews here at Amazon. In my (humble) opinion, this book is full of accurate insights into acting, Chinese opera, Mainland Chinese political thinking and the underworld... a very terrifying and off putting underworld. I was fascinated with this book... couldn't put it down...

Although there are times when the menace of Shanghai's social setup makes for uncomfortable reading, I found this book to be utterly enthralling. I would rate it right up there with Andrea Camerelli's work as not only a good mystery, but a satisfying window into another culture.

This is a richly-textured mystery novel with great local and

historical depth. The first in a series of four (so far), it

made me think about the connections between writing (creating

characters) and acting.

I doubt that my review will do much to raise the rating of this well written book or give pause to those who seemingly enjoy the murder of a novel. The mystery is then why then these people went to the bother of rating it. The negative reviews show an overall "help" quotient of near zero. So do yourselves a favour and read it if you enjoy Police Proceedurals in exotic locations. I read the book because I had finished with Eliot Pattison's P P's which were centred in Tibet. If you want slow pacing then try those and I still enjoyed them. One final note,Canadian authors unconsciously make prose feel like poetry and poetry feel like prose. And as Olivia says at the end of "Twelfth Night"
"He hath been most notoriously abus'd"

I think the plot of this book is very poor. It reads like a first draft. Not really much of a mystery, and the love line doesn't have enough time to develop because of the mystery angle. Why the author chose to bring in elements of theater and stage into the story is understandable considering the author's background, but this really detracts from the stroy. Very little originality and the acting metaphors are too obvious and unenlightening. Descriptions of Shanghai and modern day China may seem "gritty" but they are superficial at best. The author needs to research future works better, and I'll think twice before I try him again.

I felt the plot was preposterous and the characters were predictable and boring. I didn't like the attempts to get into the background of Fong as they were way too melodramatic. Couldn't get into the book at all, and the author's style was way too complicated.

The idea of murders in a foreign country solved by the local police is not new, although the Chinese slant should have been interesting. I found that the author didn't really develop the characters enough, and the global conspiracy issue was old and trite. Love affair was completely off-base and ridiculous.

I thought the author started out interestingly enough and got the reader involved, but after 1/4 though, there were sudden changes in the style and effort so that it progressively deteriorated. I don't think the author did any real justice to the intrigue of China, and the whole plot premise wasn't thought through enough. The dialog was stilted and pretty predictable. In an attempt to get to something "gritty", the author simply borrowed from scenes from a grade b murder mystery. The ending was very weak and unsatisfying. I don't think I will try to read this author again.

This book has many flaws and inconsistencies so that it is very difficult to appreciate either the murder mystery aspects, or the erotic love aspects. Female lead character is wholly unrealistic and superficial--I don't think the author really developed her at all. Male lead had many potential interesting aspects but none of these materialized. I thought I was reading a made for TV script that had all the cheap elements of teasing the reader (viewer). Skip this one...