Intrigue, betrayal, family secrets, forbidden passions – this tale of adventure and suspense links the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989 and the Kobe earthquake of 1995 through the story of Akihiko Waki, who is living a quiet life as a think-tank director in Kobe, Japan, when he hears rumours that his father, presumed long dead, is in fact alive and in danger. Akihiko undertakes a dangerous journey to China, and in Shanghai learns that what he thought he knew about his father is in fact far from ...

Intrigue, betrayal, family secrets, forbidden passions – this tale of adventure and suspense links the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989 and the Kobe earthquake of 1995 through the story of Akihiko Waki, who is living a quiet life as a think-tank director in Kobe, Japan, when he hears rumours that his father, presumed long dead, is in fact alive and in danger. Akihiko undertakes a dangerous journey to China, and in Shanghai learns that what he thought he knew about his father is in fact far from ...

An obsessive Tokyoite Pygmalion—thrilling and provocative literary fiction from a leading Japanese author.Akira, a meticulous editor at a major publishing house in Tokyo, harbors a secret: he lives with Koharu, a Hungarian-made love doll. Each night, he speaks to her and finds a long-sought solace in her presence—a comfort he cannot attain even in the arms of real women in his life. Things only improve when Koharu breaks free from her role as a love doll and starts speakin...

Intrigue, betrayal, family secrets, forbidden passions – this tale of adventure and suspense links the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989 and the Kobe earthquake of 1995 through the story of Akihiko Waki. The story begins in 1990, as Akihiko learns that his father, presumed dead in China, was leading a double life and is in fact alive and in danger. His journey leads him to Shanghai, where he finds himself mysteriously drawn to the actress Li Xing, as his search for his father becomes also a despe...

A TIME “100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time”Meet Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police in this “refreshingly brave exploration into political China, woven around a tense thriller” (Huffington Post).“A matchless pearl.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh AirA young “national model worker,” renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal....

Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is the head of the Special Case group and is often put in charge of those cases that are considered politically "sensitive" since. As a rising party cadre, he's regarded by many as reliable. But Inspector Chen, though a poet by inclination and avocation, takes his job as a policeman very seriously, despite the pressures put upon him from within and without, and is unwilling to compromise his principles as a policeman in favor of po...

A New York Times Notable book, this memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is "a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remar...

**"Dark, gorgeous…feels authentically Chinese and it works like a charm." --Washington Post Book World on A Case of Two CitiesChief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is offered a bit of luxury by friends and supporters within the Party – a week's vacation at a luxurious resort near Lake Tai, a week where he can relax, and recover, undisturbed by outside demands or disruptions. Unfortunately, the once beautiful Lake Tai, renowned for its...

“Duncan Jepson magically inhabits the life of a young Chinese woman in 1930s Shanghai….I thoroughly enjoyed this book.”—Janice Y. K. Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Piano Teacher“Breathtaking….A great work that will move its readers.”—Hong Ying, international bestselling author of Daughter of the RiverReaders previously enchanted by Memoirs of a Geisha, Empress, and the novels of Lisa See will be capti...

Is this the day I die? Li Quan asks himself this question daily, knowing that he might be killed for practicing his faith. American businessman Ben Fielding has no idea what his brilliant former college roommate is facing in China. He expects his old friend has fulfilled his dream of becoming a university professor. But when they are reunited in China after twenty years, both men are shocked at what they discover about each other. Thrown together in an hour of encroaching darkness...

Readers of Women of the Silk never forgot the moving, powerful story of Pei, brought to work in the silk house as a girl, grown into a quiet but determined young woman whose life is subject to cruel twists of fate, including the loss of her closest friend, Lin.Now, in bestselling novelist Gail Tsukiyama's The Language of Threads, we finally learn what happened to Pei, as she leaves the silk house for Hong Kong in the 1930s, arriving with a young ...

The second book in the Inspector Chen investigationsInspector Chen’s mentor in the Shanghai Police Bureau has assigned him to escort US Marshal Catherine Rohn. Her mission is to bring Wen, the wife of a witness in an important criminal trial, to the United States. Inspector Rohn is already en route when Chen learns that Wen has unaccountably vanished from her village in Fujian. Or is this just what he is supposed to believe? Chen resents his role; he would rather i...