num_pages: 299
description: By the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Peking--winner of both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction--comes rags-to-riches tale of two self-made men set against a backdrop of crime and vice in the sprawling badlands of Shanghai.Shanghai 1930s; it was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten fascism and communism outrun names invented and fortunes made--and lost.Lucky Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-U.S. Navy boxing champion he escaped from prison and rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. Dapper Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivalled Ziegfeld's.In 1940 Lucky Jack and Dapper Joe bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings while all around the Solitary Island was poverty starvation and war. They thought they ruled Shanghai but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power their downfall and the trail of destruction left in their wake. Shanghai was their playground for a flickering few years a city where for a fleeting moment even the wildest dreams could come true.
language: English
title: City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai
publisher: Picador