Canton Road
Guangdong Road
Rue Cardinal Mercier
Maoming Road South
Chapoo Road
Zhapu Road
Rue Chu Pao San
Xikou Road
Rue du Consulat
Jinling Road East
Route Courbet
Fumin Road
Dixwell Road
Liyang Road
Route Doumer
Donghu Road
Route Dupleix
Anfu Road
Edinburgh Road
Jiangsu Road
Avenue Edward VII
Yanan Road East
Fah Wah Village
Fahuazhen Road
Ferry Road
Xikang Road
Avenue Foch
Yanan Road East
Foochow Road
Fuzhou Road
Gordon Road
Jiangning Road
Great Western Road
Yanan Road West
Avenue Haig
Huashan Road
Hankow Road
Hankou Road
Route Herve de Siéyès
Yongjia Road
Jessfield Road
Wanhangdu Road
Avenue Joffre Huai Hai
Road Middle
Kiangse Road
Jiangxi Road
Kinnear Road
Wuding Road
Kiukiang Road
Jiujiang Road
Kungping Road
Gongping Road
Kweichow Road
Guizhou Road
Rue Lafayette
Fuxing Road Middle
Love Lane
Wujiang Road
Markham Road
Huaian Road
Medhurst Road
Taixing Road
Museum Street
Huqiu Road
Nanking Road
Nanjing Road East
Route Rémi
Yongkang Road
Shaanxi Road South
Rubicon Road
Hami Road
Scott Road
Shanyang Road/Shande Road
Seymour Road
Shaanxi Road North
Shantung Road
Shandong Road Middle
Sinza Road
Xinzha Road
Route des Soeurs
Ruijin No.1 Road
Soochow Road
North Suzhou Road North
Rue Stanislas Chevalier
Jianguo Road Middle
Szechuen Road
North Sichuan Road North
Tifeng Road
Wulumuqi Road North
Route Voyron
Yandang Road
Ward Road
Changyang Road
Wayside Road
Huoshan Road
Woo Foo Lane
Wufu Alley
Yangtszepoo Road
Yangshupu Road
Yu Yuen Road
Yuyuan Road
Yuan Ming Yuan Road
Yuanmingyuan Road
Ziang Teh Road
Shanyin Road
Other
OLD
CURRENT
Batavia
Jakarta (Indonesia)
Hongkew Park
Lu Xun Park
Jessfield Park
Zhongshan Park
Sawgin Creek
Shajing Creek
Siccawei Creek
Xujiahui Creek
Soochow Creek
Suzhou Creek
Whangpoo River
Huangpu River
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people contributed anecdotes and stories from old Shanghai that have been incorporated into City of Devils. They include Robert Bickers, for his wealth of knowledge on the Shanghai Municipal Police; Douglas Clark, for his understanding of Shanghai’s labyrinthine justice system; Andrew Field, for his deep investigations of the city’s dance-hall cultures; Fred Greguras, for his research on the Fourth Marines in Shanghai; Katya Knyazeva for her exhaustive knowledge of the city’s White Russian community; Greg Leck for his voluminous knowledge on the internment of allied civilians in China during the war; and Sue Anne Tay, for her work uncovering the city’s ‘comfort houses’ (and her photography). Thanks also to longtime Shanghailanders Graham Earnshaw, Duncan Hewitt, Peter Hibbard, Tess Johnston, Ned Kelly, Lynn Pan, Bill Savadove, and Mike Tsang.
Thank you to George Krooglik, whose father served in the Shanghai Municipal Police in 1941 and served in the SMP Special Reserve Unit (Riot Squad) while his mother was an usherette at the Majestic Theatre. Jacqui Mills, the great niece of Joe Farren, is part of the Pollak clan that ended up in England, and always wondered what happened to the ‘black sheep of the family’. I’m so glad she got in touch; it made rediscovering Joe so much more pertinent. Dan Moalem, the son of Girgee Moalem, née Ghazal and once Sam Levy’s partner in the Venus Café, generously shared information and photographs from Australia. So too did Vera Loewer from California, the daughter of Clara and Vasia Ivanoff, a Paramount Peach and a clarinet player in the Paramount’s White Russian house band respectively. They were witnesses to the whole thing. Steve Gensler—a distant relative of poor Daisy Simmons, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time—also added some details. Vadim Zaliva allowed me to see the memoir of George Radbil (a resident of Shanghai between 1930 and 1946 and an employee of the Jessfield Club, 1484 Yu Yuen Road in the Badlands, as its cashier and manager between 1938 and 1940), which included his recollections of Alexander Vertinsky and Boobee Fominykh. Daphne Skillen, the daughter of Kyriaco Dimitriades, proprietor of the Astoria Confectionery and Tea-Rooms on Hongkew’s Broadway, kindly shared her treasure trove of old Shanghai mementoes with me over tea and cake in Highbury, North London. And Jim Cunningham, a relative of Elly Widler, long fascinated by his most interesting ancestor, generously shared details of Widler’s amazing China experiences and the photographs that prove it. Sadly, space prevented a full telling of Elly’s amazing life and times—anyone looking for a worthy subject for a rollicking good biography need look no further.
I must also acknowledge the previous work done on the Shanghai Badlands by the great Sinologist Frederic Wakeman (1937–2006), whose books Policing Shanghai, 1927–1937 (1995) and The Shanghai Badlands, Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime 1937–1941 (1996) first led me to be intrigued by this aspect of Shanghai’s history. I’d also like to acknowledge the staff of the British Library, Hong Kong University Library, and the Shanghai Library Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei, as well as the London Library, where the bulk of this manuscript was researched and written.
My thanks to Jo Lusby for being so patient in waiting for this book. Also Patrizia Van Daalen, Lena Petzke, and Anya Goncharova at Penguin in Beijing for production help and Nerrilee Weir at Penguin Australia for handling rights. I am grateful to both Stephen Morrison at Picador in New York and Jon Riley at Riverrun in London for their support and suggestions and for becoming my publishers. Especial thanks to Arwen Summers in Melbourne and Emily Murdock Baker in New York for editing the manuscript and both being a lot of fun to work with … again. Much thanks to Anne Witchard for reading and commenting on the manuscript throughout its incarnation. I’d like to note the support of my agent, Clare Alexander, as well as Lesley Thorne at Aitken-Alexander Associates in London, and also Sue Swift, Diederick Santer, and Ollie Madden at Kudos Film and Television.
Also by Paul French
Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old Peking
The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking
Bloody Saturday: Shanghai’s Darkest Day
Betrayal in Paris: How the Treaty of Versailles Led to China’s Long Revolution
The Old Shanghai A-Z
Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao
Carl Crow—A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times,
and Adventures of an American in Shanghai
Additional Praise for
CITY OF DEVILS
“French combines the skills of a scholar with the soul of Dashiell Hammett.”
—Boris Kachka, Vulture
“A vivid and well-researched account of a gaudy, wild, and cosmopolitan place as it hurtles toward its ultimate and violent demise.”
—Financial Times (Critics’ Pick)
“Mr. French burrows into the unsavory side of the metropolis … City of Devils casts a sharp, clear light on the shady characters who—no less than their legitimate counterparts—played a role in creating Shanghai’s now-mythic golden age.”
—Maura Cunningham, The Wall Street Journal
“A gripping, breakneck ultranoir narrative reminiscent of vintage Ellroy … City of Devils is an astonishing achievement.”
—David Peace, author of Tokyo Year Zero
“[A] story of racial and class divides … [City of Devils] features a cast of dozens, all brought back to life with vivid detail and panache … From the very introduction, you’ll be hooked. I honestly can’t remember the last time a work of nonfiction was so compelling and readable; I devoured half of the book before I came up for air.”
—Criminal Element
“An absolute must. A solid, groundbreaking historical true-crime narrative, [City of Devils] is written with such vivid, well-researched details and totally captured me—a native Shanghainese—as if in a time capsule of the heretofore-unknown past passions and pathos of the city.”
—Qiu Xiaolong, award-winning author of the Inspector Chen series
“A true tale that reads like Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum should have starred in the film adaptation … I enjoyed City of Devils tremendously.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books’s China Channel
“Few epochs stir up quite so much intrigue, mystery, and glamour … City of Devils represents the very best of historical true crime: learned, gritty, and raucous.”
—CrimeReads
“A fascinating, cautionary tale of hubris and greed.”
—The Sun (Malaysia)
“Enthralling … [City of Devils] gives you a completely different perspective of [Shanghai].”
—The Beijinger
“City of Devils keeps you gripped from the start to the finish. It’s written in the fast-paced style of a noir detective novel and brings the opulence and squalor of 1930s Shanghai vividly to life … I can’t recommend [it] highly enough.”
—Richard Brown, Medium
“It’s not often that I come across a history book whose most standout feature is its style … [A] very well-written account of an oft-discussed time in a place that almost never gets mentioned. Paul French has a real gem in City of Devils.”
—The Mercury (Kansas)
“This gripping history is interspersed with gossip-rag excerpts and swirling rumors as the tension mounts, Shanghai’s complicated international politics intensify, and the war begins … A fast-paced, page-turning yarn.”
—Booklist
“French is steeped in stories of old Shanghai, and his understanding of the time and period allows him to build a fully realized world around his compelling characters. A large part of the book’s joy is in its detail: the fashion, the drinks, the drugs, the cars, the bars, the slang.”
—Asian Review of Books
“Meticulously researched and eloquently written, [City of Devils] captures the feel of the time period and the lawlessness that seemed to flourish in Shanghai’s International Settlement … Thrilling.”
—Elizabeth M. Lynch, China Law & Policy
“French’s prose is economical, razor-sharp, and lyrical … If you’re interested in Shanghai, World War II in the east, I cannot recommend City of Devils highly enough.”
—Adrian McKinty, award-winning author of the Detective Sean Duffy series
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAUL FRENCH was born in London, educated there and in Glasgow, and has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times bestseller and winner of both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Preface
Maps of Shanghai
Introduction
Prologue—The Devil’s Last Dance
Part One: The Rise to Greatness
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Two: The Lords of Misrule
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part Three: The Hour between Dog and Wolf
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue—The Fallen City
Photographs
Afterword
Glossary
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Also by Paul French
Additional Praise for City of Devils
About the Author
Copyright
CITY OF DEVILS. Copyright © 2018 by Paul French. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10271.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Names: French, Paul, 1966– author.
Title: City of devils: the two men who ruled the underworld of old Shanghai / Paul French.
Description: First edition.|New York: Picador, July 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060113|ISBN 9781250170583 (hardcover)|ISBN 9781250191717 (international)|ISBN 9781250170606 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Criminals—China—Shanghai—Fiction.|Crime—China—Shanghai—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6106.R45496 C58 2018|DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060113
Picador Paperback ISBN 978-1-250-17059-0
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First Picador Paperback Edition: July 2019
eISBN 9781250170606