City of Devils : The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai

Now one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of the Year


From Paul French, the New York Times bestselling
author of Midnight in Peking--winner of both the Edgar Award for Best
Fact Crime and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction--comes City of
Devils, a rags-to-riches tale of two self-made men set against a
backdrop of crime and vice in the sprawling badlands of Shanghai.


Shanghai, 1930s: It was a haven for outlaws from all
over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and
communism outrun, names invented, and fortunes made--and lost.


"Lucky" Jack Riley was the most notorious of those
outlaws. An ex-U.S. Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison and
rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. "Dapper" Joe Farren--a Jewish
boy who fled Vienna's ghetto--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines
rivaled Ziegfeld's.


In 1940, Lucky Jack and Dapper Joe bestrode the
Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was
poverty, starvation, and war. They thought they ruled Shanghai, but the
city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their
downfall, and the trail of destruction left in their wake. Shanghai was
their playground for a flickering few years, a city where for a fleeting
moment even the wildest dreams could come true.