The Master of Rain: A Suspense Thriller, Paperback

Shanghai, 1926: a sultry city lousy with opium, warlords, and corruption at the highest levels. Into this steamy morass walks Richard Field, an idealistic Brit haunted by his past and recently appointed to the international police. He's not there long before called to the flat of a Russian prostitute, former daughter of privilege found sadistically murdered, handcuffed to her bed. When he discovers among her possessions a cryptic shipping log, he senses that this murder is more than a random crime of perverse passion. What unfolds is a searing story that propels Field into a confrontation with the city's most ruthless and powerful gangster, and a dangerous attraction to another salacious Russian whose sordid connections seem destined to make her the next victim. Scintillating and subtle, The Master of Rain is a marvelous debut.

Tom Bradby, a foreign correspondent for the British television network ITN, is the author of The Master of Rain and The White Russian. He has spent the last nine years covering British and American politics, as well as conflicts in China, Ireland, Kosovo, and Indonesia. While living in Hong Kong and writing this novel, Bradby researched historical records and archives of 1920s Shanghai. He now lives in London with his wife and three children.