Customer Reviews

Shanghai Station

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bartle Bull proved that he could spin an exotic, thrilling yarn with his North African novels ("The White Rhino Hotel," "A Cafe on the Nile," and "The Devil's Oasis"). These novels were not "Great Literature," but they were fascinating tales of derring-do, high romance, and dastardly villainy set in the romantic WWI - WWII era. Creating strong characters and vividly capturing the harsh beauty of North Africa (as well as the seedy aspects of city life in such cesspools as Cairo), Bull transported the reader to a world he knows exceedingly well from first-hand knowledge.

In "Shanghai Station," Bull launches what appears to be an exciting new series of novels, as "Station" bears all the hallmarks of a "kick-off" first novel.

The novel opens in Northwestern Russia at the outbreak of the Communist Revolution in 1917. Our hero, Alexander Karlov, is the only son of the noble soldier, Count Karlov. Alexander must help his mother and twin sister Katia flee via the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok, and then to Shanghai, to meet their father, who is off fighting the Communists. Tragedy strikes as the train is attacked by Communists, and there is murder and a kidnapping.

Alexander arrives in Shanghai with a shattered leg and a vengeful heart . . . along with the aromatic tobacco pipe of the novel's arch-villain, the Communist fanatic Victor Polyak. Reunited with his father, Alexander and the Count escape to Shanghai, which at this time is the Casablanca of the Orient. Thousands of Europeans populate this city, one of the largest in the world, with official settlements. Alexander and his father must scrape out a living in an unforgiving cityscape of cutthroats, prostitutes, thieves, warlords, corrupt government officials, and the Chinese gangs known as the Triads. They meet friends and foes, and it's not always clear whether a friend is indeed a friend, or if a foe is actually a foe.

At the same time, the young gorgeous American Jessica James, daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, is trying to help the embryonic Communist Revolution in China. Zealous, motiviated by classic "American Christianity," Jessica (or "Jesse," as she likes to be called), is swept up in forces she doesn't entirely understand. To say that she undergoes a harsh maturation process would be an understatement.

By the end of the novel, the reader is breathless from the triumphs and travails of our heroes and villains. The final scene, a wake for a beloved character, concludes with a toast "To Shanghai!" It is a toast the evokes the hope that Bull will continue to explore this rich city and his band of intrepid characters, and that he does so soon.

In a novel that ranges from the Mongolian steppe to the most intimate pleasure rooms of a Shanghai brothel, "Shanghai Station" transports the reader to a distant, romantic, lethal world. Bull captivates with his description of the ravenous "debt collectors" used by a Shanghai crime lord to teach lessons that last a lifetime as much as with his lush descriptions of the repellent Russian Prince Krupotkin, a distant cousin of Alexander's who runs a thriving casino in Shanghai.

From the author's notes in the book, this novel is intensely personal. His father and uncles spent a lot of time in Shanghai and had a close friendship with a royal Russian. The Bull family's devotion to the art of fencing also comes through, as does their fascination with the most noble of animals, the horse. Bull concedes that he has made several deviations from the historical record, and that's fine -- we're not reading Bartle Bull's novels as a surrogate for actual history. We're reading it for thrills, chills, laughter and tears. And Bull brings the goods fast and furious.

Check it out, and let's hope that Bull can continue the series with more novels to come.

Bartle Bull has written three adventure novels about Africa, all of which feature exotic, bizarre, and highly-sexed characters. In "Shanghai Station" he shifts locales to China and writes a book that is more of a conventional adventure tale.

Young Alexander Karlov is one of many White Russians fleeing the Communists after World War I and the Bolshevik revolution. Fate leads him to Shanghai, where he meets an intiguing combination of Chinese gangsters and (...), European degenerates, American missionaries, and Russian revolutionaries. He hunts -- and is in turn hunted by -- the Bolshevik responsible for the death of his mother and the kidnapping of his sister. Bull does an excellent job of creating the atmosphere of what was one of the most fascinating and mysterious cities of the era. I would have given this book five stars had it probed a bit deeper into Shanghai and the revolutionary currents sweeping China after World War I. (The best novel about China of this period is probably "The Call" by John Hersey which is about an American missionary.)

Bull is a better than average writer and he gets the facts right about the exotic places about which he writes. This novel and Bull's earlier novels about Africa are fast-paced exciting reads.

Smallchief

Mount your spirited Mongolian pony, unsheathe your sword, and be prepared to charge into another enthralling story by Bartle Bull in Shanghai Station. Once again Bull weaves an adventurous tale that takes one completely to another place and time. Tragic moments and characters with critical insight into themselves introduce and seduce you into following their lives with vivid concern. The detailed beauty and brutality of Shanghai early in the last century forms a story backdrop one is drawn to each time s/he cracks open the book.

As with the compelling series begun with The White Rhino Hotel, the setting and characters have transported the reader to a place where there is a thirst for more storytelling. We now care about the young Count Karlov and Ms. Jesse James and are concerned about the possible survival of Commissar Polyak and the anticipated financial manipulations of Mr. Hak Lee. Readers will not merely expect Shanghai Station to be the beginning of another great series but demand it.

Bartle Bull possesses a quality of prose that has seemingly gone into hibernation over the past decade; his is a writing style as mellow and flowing as the champagne served at Alexander and Dimitri Karlov's Salle D'Armes. Intertwined with Bull's amazing ability to carry suspense across chapters is his mastery of classical Victorian pastimes: Horsemanship, fencing and the vicissitudes of the upper-crust social scene. Under Bull's careful craftsmanship, post-Great War Shanghai comes to life.

Literary anachronisms forgiven, Bull is highly underrated for his ability to tell a compelling story that hems multiple characters into close proximity without feeling formulaic or predetermined. Shanghai Station's burly and bitter antagonist, the nefarious Commisar Viktor Polyak, suffers from a bit of the two-dimensional 'Communist Baddie' cookie-cutting, but Bull seems to have noticed this and begins to further flesh out his villain in later chapters, but never quite enough to make Polyak seem as human as the rest of Shanghai Station's varied cast.

That Bull's work has mainly been restricted to reviews in Forbes is telling - while mainstream American readers decry the amount of formulaic, mass-consumption fiction on the market, they are prone to overlook such hidden gems as Shanghai Station. Bartle Bull stands as shocking evidence that the best writing internationally is not always inextricably linked to the most publicized international writing. Newcomers to historical fiction and espionage thrillers owe it to themselves to give Bull's Shanghai Station a thorough read; it does not disappoint.

Shanghai in 1918. A place where refugees from the Russian revolution were gathering. A place where the French, Japanese and Americans were competing for a place in Asia. The Chinese were splitting into two camps, the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the communists under Mao Tse-tung getting ready for a major war.

This is the background to Bartle Bull's new book where Alexander Karlov arrives as a refugee with a mission of vengeance. This is a setting not seen in many recent novels, but after writing four novels taking place in Africa, why not. It appears to be extensively researched as to the sights, sounds and even the smell of the orient (which is absolutely true). I say appears to be because he writes with a voice of authority that sounds so real. The background is great. The characters fit with fast action and enough mystery to keep you turning pages to the end.

Bartle Bull creates the Karlov family: Russian nobility on the run from the Bolshevik Revolution. Daddy Karlov (Count Karlov to us peasants) serves in the Czar's armies and after the Revolution, fights on until the end. He is bound, along with thousand of other Russians, for Shanghai. His wife, daughter Katherine and son Alexander (the children named after the Tsar's, no less) flee on the Trans-Siberian railroad to join him. The train is held up by Cheka monster Viktor Polyak. Alexander's mother is murdered and his sister kidnapped. Surviving son and father make their way to Shanghai.

The Karlovs may have known a life of ease in Russia because of hereditary wealth, but in Shanghai they have to earn their own way. Which, amazingly enough, they do with an academy that teaches the Russian way of riding and fencing. Soon enough, Alexander falls in with one of Shanghai's leading madames, a sinister Chinese strongman (Hak Lee), the lovely prostitute Lily, the missionary's daughter Jessica and a host of other fascinating characters.

The strong point of Bull's writing is his attention to history. He claims to have read six years worth of a Chinese English-language publication as part of his backgrounding. He is also quite familiar with the brutality of the Bolshevik regime and is not shy about relating its grisly details. The latter seems surprising coming from a former publisher of the very left-wing Village Voice. In any event, the historical references not only add color, but leverage Bull's relatively thin plot.

All in all, an excellent adventure of a neglected period, very well done. The sequel to this, "China Star", unfortunately, is pretty bad. So read "Shanghai Station" and resist the temptation to read the sequel: you'll be left with happier memories.

Jerry

I've been looking for a new Bartle Bull title for some time. I enjoyed the three Africa titles; White Rhino Hotel, The Devil's Oasis, and A Cafe on the Nile so much. The had a little bit of everything. Adventure, romance, a great storyline and spectacular characters. Shanghai Station did not quite meet up to these expectations, but was nevertheless well written and had an especially interesting setting. I'm waiting for more Bartle Bull!

Writing is so vivid it makes you want to visit Shanghai in the wake of the Russion Revolution and prerevolutionary China. Great adventure. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent novel. It has historical sweep, cinematic action, intrigue, revenge, and amazing detail, especially when it comes to the food these characters eat or watch other characters eating. The local color is particularly fascinating. This has not been prettied up: when characters suffer, they really suffer. We have combat, murder, rape, and torture. The poverty is there, but so is the decadent luxury.

Impoverished Russian aristocrats trying to survive as they flee the Reds give the novel its principal subject matter, but the real "star" of this novel is Shanghai 1918-19 with its squalor, corruption, and growing communist uprisings. I was a little perplexed that a major plot point was left hanging, but then I realized this might turn out to be part I of a series. I hope so. I'd like to know what happens next to the main character.

Bartle Bull has written well-researched, fast-paced and thrilling historical adventure stories based largely in Africa, and this book begins a series set in Asia, specifically Shanghai, perhaps the most wide-open, dangerous, exciting and cosmopolitan city of the inter-war period.

The plot itself is something different - father and son of an aristocratic Czarist family escape the Reds in Civil War Russia, and along with their horses and some of their faithful men, start a new life in Shanghai. This soon becomes complicated by involvement in gambling, horse racing, tongs, houses of prostitution, you name it, Bull puts it in. In fact, Bull's research on the period and the times is so extensive, the various scenes and plot devices at times appear to be merely excuses for the author to put into the book the various activities, smells, motivations, and appetites of the Shanghai he is obviously fascinated by. To the extent that this becomes evident, the plot suffers somewhat...but throughout the book one remains enthralled in this other world. It's really well done.

In a bit of a postscript, Bull tells the story of his own involvement in Shanghai, through his family and his own travels, and frankly his tale is in many ways almost as good as the fictional story he presents. He also presents his research, gives notes on characters and real people, and explains some of the not-quite-right data in the book, sometimes shoehorned in for the sake of the story.

This is excellent historical fiction, well written and well presented.