The Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

Book Overview

Shanghai, 1926. A city glistening with decadence and rife with corruption--a humid, bustling society at the cultural crossroads of British civil servants, American gun runners, Russian princesses, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385503970
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Atmospheric thriller

I really enjoy thrillers that take place in exotic locations, and in other eras. This excellent work does both, the action taking place in the foreign Concessions of Shainghai in 1926. We see a varied cast of characters, and the plot leaves the reader guessing as to the motives and loyalties of each one. The author successfully invokes the moral ambiguity of the period, and the tale moves along fairly swiftly. This is one book well worth reading, and I recommend it highly!

Shanghai Confidential

A dead prostitute lies in her bed, stabbed repeatedly and handcuffed to the bedposts. A morally compromised police investigator must look into her death, paying special attention to the potential political implications of the murder. Given that the setting is 1926 Shanghai, the politics are somewhat tangled: no one's really running China at the moment, warlords run rampant, and in the International Community in Shanghai (where the novel takes place) the business leaders, all of them European, fear a Bolshevik rising more than anything. The city's full of Russian exiles fleeing the Communists, Chinese gangsters, and Westerners with pasts they wish to leave behind.This is one of the most complex, involved, atmospheric novels I've read in a good while. Think James Ellroy's L. A. Confidential, but with a Chinese setting and a more multi-culturnal cast. There is a great deal here about moral compromises, and what they do to those who make them. There's also a wonderful mystery, complete with various characters scheming to get ahead or get by or survive, using each other in the pursuit of that goal.I frankly was amazed by this book, spent most of a Saturday afternoon trying to finish it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it.

Mystery at its best!

What a page turner! Very much reminded me of the excitement present in Caleb Carr's work. This book abounds with all of the ingredients that make up a good murder mystery: politics, greed, and sex. Set in Shanghai during the 20's, Bradby brings the reader on a journey of intrigue and fast paced drama. You will walk away with a keen sense of the social climate of China before it fell to Communism but you will not quite understand how you got it, for the message is subtle. Bradby does not drown you with pages of detail but gently weaves it through out the story. Not knowing much of China myself, I felt a weird sense of sympathy for the country and could almost see the purpose that communism served there. Through his diverse characters, you will obtain insight into the impact of foreigners on the country, the division of classes within its borders, the skin trade, drug smuggling, and the brutality inherent in organized crime. A brilliant book! A history lesson on a subject rarely talked about with the bonus of a solid mystery. A little slow in starting out but stick with it, once it takes off it is worth it.

a gripping, haunting and compelling read

Reading "The Master of Rain" is a bit like immersing yourself in a really good and gripping black and white American noir flick from the '40s. The ingredients are all there: a prostitute is found brutally murdered, and the young policeman (Richard Field, fresh off the boat from Yorkshire) assigned to this his first major murder case, is determined to prove himself and to discover who perpetrated this heinous crime, no matter what. But then there is the complication of the murdered woman's beautiful neighbour (Natasha Medvedev), with whom Field finds himself perilously drawn to, and who has her own share of painful and dangerous secrets to hide...Field soon finds himself trying to navigate through waters he doesn't quite understand. To begin, the police department (a multinational concern) is split up into two rival departments -- Special Branch that deals mainly with the communist threat, and the Criminal Division which deals with all other types of crime, like murder, theft, etc -- that are at odds with each other. Neither division quite trusts the other, and each suspects the other of consorting with the local crime lord, Lu Huang. Field has been assigned to Special Branch, but finds himself seconded to the Criminal Branch for the duration of this investigation into the murder of Lena Orlov. The ritualistic and savage manner with which the murder was carried out suggests that the murderer has struck before, and that he will strike again. In the face of public apathy (after all the victim was only another Russian prostitute), Field soon finds that his only allies to solving this murder happen to be the two detectives he's currently working with, Caprisi and Chen. But the more they investigate, the more evidence they uncover of corruption and criminal activity. No one seems above board. Alone in a land whose politics and culture he doesn't quite understand, and finding himself being constantly advised by everyone to trust no one, and to be careful of what his actions will wrought, Field soon finds himself even beginning to doubt both Caprisi and Chen. As one character in the book states, people come to Shanghai to either escape their past, or else to enrich themselves. Can Field afford to trust his partners? And will they be able to apprehend Lena Orlov's murderer before he strikes again? Or will this crime, like so many others, be swept under the rug of political expediency? And what of Natasha? Is she as ignorant as she claims of Lena's comings and goings? Or is she hiding something? With his own share of personal demons that he has to contend with, Field is nevertheless determined to discover who this serial killer is, and to put an end to his reign of terror.This is definitely the mystery novel of the year (so far anyway). What a fantastically engrossing read! While the novel does unfold in a rather slow and circular manner, Tom Bradby had done an excellent job of steeping "The Master of Rain" with ambiance and atmosphere, that reading every