From the author of The Last Chinese Chef, a love story between a black musician and a gangster's translator set against Shanghai's dazzling jazz age and the looming menace of World War II, and "a rich and thoroughly captivating read." (Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden)



"Historical fiction at its best." --Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered



Sailing to Shanghai in 1936, Thomas Greene goes from playing classical piano for pennies in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with his own servants, the leader of a black jazz orchestra. Song Yuhua has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai's toughest crime boss, but risks her life spying on him for the Communist Party. With Shanghai shattered by the Japanese invasion, Thomas and Song find one another and forge a bond neither can deny. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and war, they navigate the city's growing dangers until the moment when they must cast their lots in Night in Shanghai's final, impossible choice.