The Master of Rain: A Suspense Thriller - Softcover

Richard Field, Bradby’s resourceful protagonist, has been seconded to the police force in the turbulent city of Shanghai. He finds a jostling mélange of British Imperial civil servants, American gunrunners and vicious Chinese gangsters. The grisly case he is landed with involves the mutilated body of a young White Russian woman and Field discovers that her neighbour, Natasha Medvedev, is somehow crucial to the investigation. But Natasha’s only agenda is self-preservation and Field finds himself unwisely falling in love with her. Can he crack the mystery before the next victim falls--particularly as the signs are that it is to be Natasha?

This is splendidly evocative writing from the author of the first-rate Shadow Dancer. Masterly in its depiction of a beautiful, dirty and corrupt city and a population in thrall to the imperatives of the market: human life, like everything else in Shanghai, has its price. Field is the perfect conduit for the reader through the glittering decay of the city and his relationships (both with the beguiling Natasha and the panoply of quirky, dangerous characters he encounters) are adroitly handled by Bradby. The book is nearly 500 pages long but the reader will find that it has the pace and compulsiveness of a short story. --Barry Forshaw