CITY OF DEVILS

City of Devils is a rags to riches tale of two self made men set against a backdrop of crime and vice where the sprawling Badlands of 1930s Shanghai is a character unto itself.

In a city of temptations unfolds an astonishing story of two men whose lives intertwine in both crime and a twisted friendship. The self-named Jack Riley with his acid-burnt fingertips finds a future in Shanghai as The Slots King, while Joe Farren, whose name was printed in neon across the Badlands, rises to fame and cashes in on Shanghai’s sins.

Between gambling, drugs and corruption, French uncovers a side of Shanghai that has since been long forgotten, only to reignite the curiosity for the past in all of us.

Paul French brings a new take and perspective on the real lives of ‘Lucky Jack’ and ‘Dapper Joe’. Eyewitness accounts from moles at the Shanghai Municipal Police, letters home, and contemporary newspaper articles furnish this meticulously researched story of a time and a place that lives rich in the imagination, but has remained largely untold in human and dramatic detail. But Paul also brings a novelist’s eye to some of the events to create even more tension and atmosphere.

Paul French takes you deep into those Badlands, grips you by the throat and doesn’t let go through his carefully researched narrative. There are evocative depictions of music halls, bars, theatres and all the fights over a glance sent by the wrong man to the wrong woman at the wrong time. Paul brings the sights and sounds of these bars to life, making them seem both intensely glamorous and depressingly seedy. But of course, the bigger story is that of our two main protagonists, their ambition, dreams and ultimately, how they never quite got away with it.

Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. He is a widely published analyst and commentator on China and has written a number of books, including a history of foreign correspondents in China and a biography of the legendary Shanghai adman, journalist and adventurer Carl Crow. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and will be made into an international mini-series by Kudos Film and Television, the UK creators of Spooks and Life on Mars.