Martin Petersen’s Shanghai: A Garden of Many Delights
Book Review: City of Lost Souls: A Jack Ford Shanghai Mystery
By Martin Petersen/Earnshaw Books Ltd
Reviewed by Kenneth Dekleva
The Reviewer – Dr. Kenneth Dekleva served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist with the U.S. Dept. of State from 2002-2016, and is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Psychiatry-Medicine Integration, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX; he is also a Senior Fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations and a Salzburg Global Fellow. He is also the author of the novels The Negotiator’s Cross and The Last Violinist. The views expressed are entirely his own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, the U.S. Dept. of State, or UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Martin Petersen is a highly regarded former senior CIA official, China hand (and Cipher Brief expert.) His first novel, The City of Lost Souls: A Jack Ford Shanghai Mystery, is a delightful read and most welcome addition to the genre of historical mysteries set in pre-revolutionary China. And Petersen surely knows his history, and he makes Shanghai his own city. Like any good spy, Petersen takes to heart what a CIA case officer serving in Moscow once told me: “every case officer must know his city.”
Petersen’s novel begins in pre-war Shanghai, where a long-time resident expat private eye, Jack Ford, is approached by an American woman searching for her missing brother. I have, regrettably, never been to Shanghai, but Petersen made me feel as if I were transported back in time, to the scenes, delights, smells, gaudiness, character, cruelty, and sensibility of Shanghai in the early 1930’s. His descriptions of Shanghai immediately set the scene, and are a sensual delight, reminding readers that in most cultures, primitive, atavistic senses and smells matter most, leaving – to borrow from the great poet-translator Eliot Weinberger – their ‘karmic traces’ in our minds. Petersen takes us through the alleys, streets, and hutongs, and their dizzying maze of humanity.
But as much as Shanghai is the main character in this novel, others populate it as well, and Petersen makes them come to life. There’s Jack Ford, an expat, worn-out, cynical private eye, and his sidekick Peter. And of course, his client, Constance Baker-Kerr, a lovely, enigmatic British citizen, searching for her brother Robin, and yearning for more, a chance to re-start her life, give it a purpose, and come to grips with their father’s earlier death in Kashgar, and his legacy as an archaeologist, discoverer of lost scrolls pertaining to the Kaifeng Jews, spy, and Asian traveler. There are other colleagues, fellow Shanghai residents such as Carl Crow, Alan Mowbray, Lao Wu, and others, such as Father Robert Jacquinot de Besange, who help Jack along, while often sharing a Cuban cigar and a Bombay Sapphire Gin. The scene is set …
The Shanghai of 1932 was a veritable nest of spies, gangsters, and potentates, some of whom populate Petersen’s novel. They include Japanese intelligence officers Tachibana of the Japanese Navy and Tanaka of the feared Kempetai. We are introduced to Tu Yueh-sheng, the legendary head of the Green Gang, with a fearsome reputation, known as Big-Eared Tu. While not featured in this novel, the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Richard Sorge spent several years in Shanghai during the early 1930’s, where he developed his spy ring that would later – in Tokyo – obtain the German intelligence predicting ‘Operation Barbarossa’ and its June 22, 1941 start to the Nazi invasion of the USSR.
Who could forget Shanghai’s legendary Jews, such as Sir Victor Sassoon (who makes a cameo appearance in the novel), who built the elegant Cathay Hotel, and entertained legions of guests, such as princes, prime ministers, military officers, spies, journalists, and businessmen, and who, along with the Kadoories, who created modern Shanghai and made it what it was. Later, during and after the war, there would be more secretive Jews, such as the late Shaul Eisenberg, an Israeli billionaire (who rarely gave a media interview during his life), whose career started in Shanghai, and who developed the Israeli/Chinese arms industry. They too, could have easily appeared in Petersen’s novel.
The plot moves along briskly, with the complicated search for Constance’s brother, as well as her desire to uncover and salvage her father’s scholarly legacy. She and Jack – both ‘lost souls’ – find a measure of solace and love, even in the ruins of early 1930’s Shanghai. But like many wartime romances, it’s not meant to last, but as Petersen lets the reader know, such are love’s many wonders. This part ended on a nostalgic note. Like much of this elegant novel, it made me want to have a Romeo and Julieta cigar and a Bombay Sapphire Gin, and to feel what Jack and Connie must have felt during those poignant times.
Overall, Martin Petersen’s debut mystery novel is a most worthy and delightful read. He captures the essence of pre-war Shanghai, and its many mysteries and secrets. More, please.
City of Lost Souls: A Jack Ford Shanghai Mystery earns a prestigious 4 out of 4 trench coats
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