The Master of Rain

The brilliant new thriller from the acclaimed author of "Shadow Dancer and "The Sleep of the Dead.
In a world where the basest of human needs are met, truth seems certain to be a fatal commodity.
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 an escape from his past. Seconded to the police force, his first moment of active duty is at a brutal crime scene. A young White Russian woman, Lena Orlov, lies on her bed, sadistically murdered. The key to the investigation seems to be the beautiful Natasha Medvedev, but can she be trusted - and is it safe to fall in love with a woman who may be the next victim?
Beneath the murky depths of Shanghai, 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.