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Gangsters of Shanghai: The Most Dangerous Police Beat in The World Kindle Edition
| Gerry O'Sullivan (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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A brilliant and thrilling police noir historical adventure
The Untouchables meets The Great Gatsby.
Turning Shanghai Into Casablanca Effortlessly..... Takes the reader on a noir-style adventure.
It's 1927, the son of a rural Irish cop, Michael Gallagher joins the Shanghai Municipal Police to escape an Ireland crippled by its recent bitter independence fight, and to trace the aristocratic woman whose memory still haunts him. They would venture together to China, Fiona once promised. Then the IRA torched her family estate. Everybody believes she died there. Everybody but Mike Gallagher.
Shanghai. Pearl of the East or Whore of the Orient? Depends on who you ask. It's a cesspool of poverty, thronged with refugees, gripped by civil war. But for some it's still a fever dream: jazz clubs and opium dens, celebrities and spies, easy money and easier women. Gallagher encounters the city's biggest philanthropist, a man called Big Ears Lu - who is also its creepiest racketeer. He falls for the beautiful courtesan Miriam Tsai. But does his collusion with Lu keep her trapped in the House of Multiple Joys? Shanghai in 1927 is a city where after dark anything seems possible. A city where anyone can be crushed, and anyone corrupted. Even an innocent Irish cop.
From the wreckage of guerrilla war in Ireland to the dawn of world war in Asia, the international mystery thriller Gangsters of Shanghai seethes with 20th Century turbulence and temptation. Can Mike Gallagher escape the imploding city with his life, his self-respect - and the answer to Fiona's fate?
About The Author Of Gangsters Of Shanghai.
Gerry O'Sullivan was born in Limerick, Ireland, where he indulged his taste for historical fiction and intelligent action thrillers. A graduate of the University of Limerick, he moved to Australia and worked in the international education sector.
Gerry was inspired to write this action mystery by his granduncle, a Detective Inspector in the Shanghai Municipal Police during the 1920's. Spellbound by old photographs and family lore, Gerry resolved to write an action adventure thriller with the accuracy of historical fiction. Gerry travelled to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brandeis University, Boston where the top-secret files of the Shanghai Municipal Police Special Branch are kept on microfilm (they were smuggled out of Shanghai by the CIA in 1949).
Gerry then moved to Singapore to immerse himself in the atmosphere of a fast paced English-speaking Asian city, as Shanghai was in the 1920's and 1930's. To achieve the pulse-quickening features of an action mystery with the demandingly accurate details of historical fiction, Gerry blended his granduncle's stories about his Shanghai police work, years of scholarly research, and his own experiences of the city.
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- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJuly 31, 2013
- File size3671 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Could not put this book down. As good as Grisham
-Richard McCormack, Amazon.com
Superbly researched, it beggars belief that Gangsters of Shanghai is not filling the shelves in bookshops. It certainly deserves to be a best-seller.
-David Lowther, Amazon.UK (Author of 'The Blue Pencil')
This book is worth reading for its historical detail alone .... There's an extremely well-drawn, accretive picture of just how surreal the International Settlement was. Wealthy Westerners line their balconies and watch vicious fighting just outside their borders as if it was sport .... We also see the grim experience of women on Bubbling Well Road. Subtle in his detail, the author refrains from judgment: women are brutalized but sometimes have agency ....
-City Weekend, Shanghai
A crime drama that jumps back and forth between China and Ireland during the turbulent first third of the 20th Century .... This mystery thriller manages to provide more than enough well-rendered excitement to sustain readers' attention.-Kirkus Reviews
Gerry O'Sullivan's portrait of Jazz-Age Shanghai is pungent and lush .... Action shifts back and forth between Shanghai in the late 1920s and early '30s, and the slightly earlier Troubles in Ireland .... O'Sullivan's rich descriptions and clearly extensive research brought both alive.-Underground Book Reviews
In December 2013 it reached the top ten in the Amazon 'thrillers historical' genre .... The main protagonist .... carrying the adventurer's essential item of luggage, a broken heart, sets off to join the Shanghai Municipal Police .... One of the great strengths of this book is its credible atmosphere. Shanghai was a smouldering pit of corruption, poverty and hedonism, with a heaving and colourful nightlife.-Limerick Leader, Ireland.
About the Author
Gerry was inspired to write this action mystery by his granduncle, a Detective Inspector in the Shanghai Municipal Police during the 1920's. Spellbound by old photographs and family lore, Gerry resolved to write an action adventure thriller with the accuracy of historical fiction. Gerry travelled to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brandeis University, Boston where the top-secret files of the Shanghai Municipal Police Special Branch are kept on microfilm (they were smuggled out of Shanghai by the CIA in 1949).
Gerry then moved to Singapore to immerse himself in the atmosphere of a fast paced English-speaking Asian city, as Shanghai was in the 1920's and 1930's. To achieve the pulse-quickening features of an action mystery with the demandingly accurate details of historical fiction, Gerry blended his granduncle's stories about his Shanghai police work, years of scholarly research, and his own experiences of the city. --This text refers to the paperback edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B00E9MBUY0
- Publisher : Rosetta No. 3 A/C Pty Ltd (July 31, 2013)
- Publication date : July 31, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 3671 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 320 pages
- Lending : Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,165,695 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #559 in Historical Chinese Fiction
- #1,136 in Historical Irish Fiction
- #1,311 in Biographies of World War II
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Gerry O'Sullivan is a speaker, company director and consultant with 30 years’ experience in corporate training and adult education.
He brings an international perspective to his work - he is widely travelled, has lived in Europe, Australia and Asia and has trained clients from 61 countries.
After a career in business, Gerry reinvented himself as an author. His best-selling novel 'Gangsters of Shanghai' is currently optioned for development as a major international TV series.
His latest book on small business start-ups 'RAW: Real Talk for Small Business' - co-written with Scott Tulloch, the co-founder of Farmer Jo, has just been released.
Contact gerry at: gerryosullivansydney@gmail.com
Web: gerryosullivan.com
Mobile/cell: +61 403 342 778
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Tying these three gangsters together is Michael Gallagher. Michael idealizes his honest-cop father, who was Irish but defended British interests during The Troubles. And, he has enduring romantic thoughts about the wealthy Fiona, who Michael’s father was defending from the IRA when he died in 1920. GoS begins seven years after Constable Gallagher’s death, when Michael is a newbie copper walking the beat in Shanghai, which he claims is the toughest in the world. And as time passes, we see Michael, who developed a taste for luxury when he was friends with Fiona, seduced by the corruption in Shanghai. And we gradually learn that Fiona was friendly with Flyte, who is connected in business to Lu, who pays off Dell…
O’Sullivan tells GoS with some flashbacks to The Troubles in Ireland. But, for the most part, he sets this well-paced thriller in Shanghai in the years 1927 through 1937. This was a period of robust capitalism and pervasive corruption, which Michael lacks the character to resist. But it was also a period of great political upheaval and O’Sullivan incorporates such crises as the Shanghai Massacre (1927) and the Battle of Shanghai (1937) into his story. What’s that old discredited Tom Wolfe idea? Who needs fiction when actual life and history is so dramatic and bizarre?
O’Sullivan tells an involving yarn. But he does sometimes write his characters into desperate situations with no plausible escape or benign solution. But I suppose that’s why there were Japanese patrols in Shanghai, one fortunately headed by an acquaintance of… Or, a character may face certain death but then… the improbabilities of war intervene… Ack… never mind; why quibble? This is an entertaining book and an eye-opening fictionalization of a historical period overlooked by this (and most) Americans.
Recommended if you’re a consumer of thrillers.
If it were a movie, I'd rate it R b/c it contains adult content and some graphic violence - probably not necessary to state that, but since a good number of my reviews are YA, it's worth pointing out.
Point Assessment, Comments, and Ratings:
Plot (2.5/5 stars) - As mentioned by a negative reviewer, the plot tends to meander.
Plot Twists (3/5 stars) - Predictable yet satisfying.
Characters (4/5) - You can come to sympathize with Michael and the ladies in his life. Most of the rest of the characters are 2d, but I don't think it really detracts all that much.
Writing Style (4/5) - Detailed yet easy to read.
Newspaper inserts (5/5) - Brilliant move on the author's part. They're part of the reason I'd actually categorize this as historical fiction, not mystery. There is one subplot mystery going on in the background, but this isn't a detective story despite the main character being a copper.
Dialogue (3/5) - decent but some spots got repetitive.
Adult Content (3/5) - It's strange. Some things are described in a lot of detail but when it comes to the main character everything is handled with something akin to a sense of embarrassment.
Violence (4/5) - Generally handled well. It provides a nice perspective on the tulmultuous world circa 1920-1937.
Flashbacks (4/5) - Handled very nicely. I don't typically like flashbacks, but the dates certainly helped.
Conclusion: If you're seeking a globetrotting gumshoe, this isn't what you're going to get. However, if detailed historical fiction with a dash of thriller is your thing, go for it as long as adult content, including quite a few f-bombs) doesn't disturb you.
Top reviews from other countries
The central character is Michael Gallagher who has fled from the troubled Ireland of the 1920s following his father's death and joined the Municipal Police in Shanghai. We follow him through the nineteen twenties to the eve of the Second World War as he, and the city, sink ever deeper into the depths of corruption.
The author uses time and location switch very cleverly as episodes in Ireland shown in flashback help the reader to understand Michael's behaviour and reactions to circumstances to people he meets on Shanghai's crime infested streets.
Gangsters of Shanghai is fully of fascinating and surprising characters, including some very nasty villains, who are exceptionally well- drawn and they share top billing with the city itself which is brilliantly described. Set against the background of the Sino-Japanese and the early stages of the Chinese Civil War, Shanghai appears as a city of great contrasts between extreme wealth and poverty and a city of international degradation. My previous knowledge of the city comes from movies such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ang Lee's Lust Caution and Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, all of which showed Shanghai as a significant international city but not as the sink of crime and corruption it really was.
Superbly researched, it beggars belief that Gangsters of Shanghai is not filling the shelves in bookshops. It certainly deserves to be a best-seller.
Shanghai war zu jener Zeit offenbar ein Eldorado des Gangstertums, und auch innerhalb der Polizei gibt es Kräfte, die ein Stück vom Kuchen abbekommen wollen. Gallagher erliegt den Einflüsterungen der Korruptionsverführer: "No peeler on the beat ever got rich."
Doch dann taucht plötzlich die totgeglaubte Fiona in Shanghai auf - oder ist sie nur ein Geist aus der Vergangenheit?
Ich will nicht vorgreifen, aber an diesem Roman stimmt einfach alles - knallharte Action und bewegende Emotion, Recherche und überraschende Wendungen, farbige Charaktere und profundes Hintergrund-Wissen.
Einziger Kritikpunkt wäre, dass es diesen Thriller bisher nur im englischen Original gibt - aber wenn die Story gut ist, würde ich einen Roman notfalls auch auf Chinesisch lesen ;-)






