Paperback: The first in a suspenseful new trilogy by the internationally bestselling author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (2012), this gripping story follows a retired expat journalist in contemporary China who tries to crack a murder case as he battles his own personal demons.
American expat Paul Leibovitz was once an ambitious advisor, dedicated father, and loving husband. But after living for nearly thirty years in Hong Kong, personal tragedy strikes and Paul’s marriage unravels in the fallout.
Now Paul is living as a recluse on an outlying island of Hong Kong. When he makes a fleeting connection with Elizabeth, a distressed American woman on the verge of collapse, his life is thrown into turmoil. Less than twenty-four hours later, Elizabeth’s son is found dead in Shenzhen, and Paul, invigorated by a newfound purpose, sets out to investigate the murder on his own.
As Paul, Elizabeth, and a detective friend descend deeper into the Shenzhen underworld - against the wishes of a woman with whom Paul has had a flirtation - they discover dark secrets hidden beneath China’s booming new wealth. In a country where rich businessmen with expensive degrees can corrupt the judicial system, the potential for evil abounds.
Part love story, part crime thriller, Whispering Shadows (2015) is the captivating tale of one man’s desperate search for redemption within the vice of a world superpower, a place where secrets from the past threaten to upend the country’s unchecked drive towards modernization.
Whispering Shadows is translated from the German by Christine Lo.
About the author: Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, and, longing to travel the world, became the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000, he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is his first novel, and since then, he has written three further novels, including a sequel to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, that is, A Well-Tempered Heart. In 2013, he received The Indies Choice Honour Award in the category Adult Fiction for The Art of Hearing Heartbeats. He lives in Potsdam with his family and is currently working on the third instalment in his China-trilogy which will be published on 14 February 2019.
Christine Lo is an editor in book publishing in London. She has also worked as a translator in Frankfurt and translated books by Juli Zeh and Senait Mehari from German into English. Her most recent translation is Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky.
Rating: 5/5
I am a fan of Jan-Philipp Sendker's books and loved Whispering Shadows just as much as his other books. Glad you liked it, too.
ReplyDeleteMarianne