A family has been found murdered in the heart of 1920s Shanghai. But what could have compelled them to open the door to their killer?
Inspector Danilov has always taken a unique approach to detective work. So, when he’s asked to investigate the violent death of a fellow police officer, killed in action, he doesn’t think twice about turning his attention to a different case altogether: the brutal murder of the Lee family, found massacred in their own home.
How could the deaths of an ordinary family account for a shooting halfway across the city? And what clues lie with the letter found clasped in the dead girl’s hand? Inspector Danilov’s instincts tell him he’s close. But when the investigation reveals deep corruption at Shanghai’s core, Danilov faces a choice: probe further, and expose the evil underbelly of the city? Or shy from duty…and keep the few people he loves safe?
Death in Shanghai
City of Shadows
An Inspector Danilov Thriller
M J Lee
HQ
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016
Copyright © M J Lee 2016
M J Lee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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E-book Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9781474046558
Version date: 2018-09-20
M J LEE
has spent most of his adult life writing in one form or another. As a University researcher in history, he wrote pages of notes on reams of obscure topics. As a social worker with Vietnamese refugees, he wrote memoranda. And, as the creative director of an advertising agency, he has written print and press ads, TV commercials, short films, and innumerable backs of cornflake packets and hotel websites.
He has spent 25 years of his life working outside the North of England. In London, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok and Shanghai, winning advertising awards from Cannes, One Show, D&AD, New York, and the United Nations.
Whilst working in Shanghai, he loved walking through the old quarters of that amazing city, developing the idea behind a series of crime novels featuring Inspector Pyotr Danilov, set in the 1920s.
When he’s not writing, he splits his time between the UK and Asia, taking pleasure in playing with his daughter, practising downhill ironing, single-handedly solving the problem of the French wine lake and wishing he were George Clooney.
To all my friends that helped write this book. Jon Resnick, Winnie Hsu, Katie Ge, Jonathan Holburt and Fabrice Desmarescaux. I couldn’t have done it without you. And to all the other HQ Digital authors, whose support and friendship means so much, thank you for being there.
To my brother, Michael, and sister, Patricia.
Family means everything.
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