The Master Of Rain
  • Published: 1 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446422625
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 608
Categories:

The Master Of Rain

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A brilliant historical thriller - LA CONFIDENTIAL meets WHITE MISCHIEF

Shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Thriller of the Year

Shanghai, 1926. A city of British Imperial civil servants, American gun-runners, Russian princesses and Chinese gangsters, where heroin is available on room service and everything is for sale. Exotic, sexually liberated and pulsing with life, it is a place and time where anything seems possible.

For Richard Field, it represents a brave new world away from the past he is trying to escape. Seconded to the police force, his first moment of active duty is a brutal crime scene. A young White Russian woman, Lena Orlov, lies spreadeagled on her bed, sadistically murdered. As he begins to peer through the glittering surface to the murky depths beneath, Field sees a world beyond the glamour of the city's expatriate life - a world where everything has its price, and where human life is merely another asset to barter.

The key to the investigation seems to be Lena's neighbour, Natasha Medvedev. But can Field trust someone for whom self-preservation is the only goal? And is it wise to fall in love when there is every sign that Natasha herself may be the next victim?

In a city where reality is a dangerous luxury, Field is driven into the darkness beyond the dazzle of society to a world where the basest of human needs are met and where the truth seems certain to be a fatal commodity . . .
____________________

Praise for Tom Bradby:

‘Quite exceptional’ Daily Telegraph
‘Nigh on impossible to put down’ Time Out
‘Bradby has the talent of a reporter but the heart of a storyteller’ Daily Mail
‘Intrigue of the highest order … Atmospheric and richly entertaining’ Washington Post
‘This feisty, pacey thriller by TV news reporter turned writer Tom Bradby has it all’ Press Association
  • Published: 1 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446422625
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 608
Categories:

About the author

Tom Bradby

Tom Bradby is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist. As a broadcaster, he is best known as the current Anchor of ITV’s News at Ten. In his first year in the job, he was named Network Presenter of the Year by the Royal Television Society.


He has been with ITN for thirty years and was successively Ireland Correspondent, Political Correspondent, Asia Correspondent (during which time he was shot and seriously injured whilst covering a riot in Jakarta), Royal Correspondent, UK Editor and Political Editor – a job he held for a decade – before being made the Anchor of News at Ten in 2015.

He has written seven previous novels, the most recent of which, Secret Service, was a top ten bestseller. The Master of Rain was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Steel Dagger for Thriller of the Year, and both The White Russian and The God of Chaos for the CWA Historical Crime Novel of the Year. He adapted his first novel, Shadow Dancer, into a film, the script for which was nominated for Screenplay of the Year in the Evening Standard Film Awards.

portrait photo of Tom Bradby

Also by Tom Bradby

Double Agent
Secret Service
Triple Cross
Yesterday's Spy
The God Of Chaos
Blood Money
Shadow Dancer
See all

Praise for The Master Of Rain

'A moody, murder mystery with all the style of a noir classic'

The Mirror

'Nigh on impossible to put down...This intelligent thriller brings Shanghai to life as Gorky Park did for Moscow'

Time Out

'Rich, dark, atmospheric, this fine novel captures time and place perfectly. A great crime story that ends up in a place you won't predict'

Lee Child

The atmosphere and menace of Twenties Shanghai is brought to vivid life as the backdrop to a gripping tale'

Daily Mail

'Master of Rain is that rare thing: a truly epic crime novel, brilliantly researched and superbly executed'

John Connolly

'Does for Shanghai what Raymond Chandler did for Los Angeles - stylish and cool - debauchery at its most elegant'

Time

'Every once in a while a book comes along that combines larger-than-life epic adventure; idiomatic, pungent historical detail and genuine storytelling panache. Tom Bradby's The Master of Rain is such a book, carrying the reader headlong into a breathless tale of double-dealing and murder in 1920s Shanghai...Splendidly evocative writing'

Amazon.co.uk

'An immensely atmospheric, gripping detective story with just the right mixture of exoticism, violence and romance'

The Times

'Beneath the surface of this clever book, we find a wise, richly layered and utterly convincing portrait of what was the most evil and fatally fascinating of all the modern world's cities. No one has managed to bring Shanghai so alive, in all its ghastly splendour'

Simon Winchester

'A vividly set and compellingly readable thriller about corruption in all its forms'

Robert Goddard