Matthew Legare - Thriller Author
Website for Matthew Legare, writer of historical, thriller, and noir novels, including the Reiko Watanabe/Inspector Aizawa series set in 1930s Japan.
January 1937. On a bitterly cold night, the body of a young Englishwoman is found u
nderneath the Fox Tower in eastern Peking. The murdered girl is Pamela Werner, the daughter of a retired British diplomat and her killer vanished into the darkness. Midnight in Peking by Paul French is the definitive account of this forgotten girl’s murder.
[Read more…] about Midnight in Peking Review & Interview With Paul French
Before World War II, there was precious little cinematic depictions of Japan from Hollywood, especially when compared to China. However, after Pearl Harbor, a slew of propaganda films were made to depict the Japanese enemy. Even among these, they rarely showed the Japanese home front and even rarer, the internal politics of Japan in the 1930s. Behind the Rising Sun is a surprising exception.
[Read more…] about Behind the Rising Sun (1943) Movie Review
Like Weimar Berlin, Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s has always held a unique appeal for me. It’s got everything:
bloodthirsty gangsters, seedy prostitutes, glamorous nightclubs, spies, political intrigue, and a cosmopolitan feel that makes Berlin look like Oklahoma.
[Read more…] about The Murder Game Review & MJ Lee Interview
It was love at first site. The image of a running man, superimposed o
ver the Golden Gate Bridge, his head slightly turned to look behind him for danger. With a cover like that, I knew I was going to like Japantown by Barry Lancet. Anyone who knows me knows I love thrillers, and stories set in Japan and San Francisco. Imagine my joy when I learned this book is all three.
[Read more…] about Japantown Review & Interview With Barry Lancet
In Western media, World War II in Asia has never received as many stories dedicated to it compared to the events in Europe. The lack of stories set in Japan before and during the war makes me really appreciate novels like F. Paul Wilson’s Black Wind.
[Read more…] about Black Wind Review Review & Interview With F. Paul Wilson
Tokyo Joe combines three of my favorite things: film noir, a historical setting, and political intrigue. It’s a criminally underrated movie and while it’s not Humphrey Bogart’s best, it still deserves to be rediscovered by audiences.
What is the Luftwaffe possessed the Japanese Zero fighters? From this intriguing premise comes the book Zero Over Berlin, a fairly standard adventure novel set in 1940 from author Joh Sasaki.
Goodbye Chairman Mao by Christopher New deals with one of the most fascinating and least known events of modern times; the Lin Piao Incident. For those of you unfamiliar, in September 1971, Mao Tse-tung’s successor, Marshal Lin Piao fled China in route to the Soviet Union but never made it any farther than Mongolia. His plane crashed landed, killing him and everyone on board.
[Read more…] about Goodbye Chairman Mao Review & Interview With Christopher New
In the early months of 1931, the world was a very different place. There was no Nazi regime in Germany, Japan hadn’t invaded Manchuria, and Stalin was solidifying his power within the Soviet Union. It is on this world stage where That Evening in Shanghai by Paul Thorne is set.
Hugh Cardell, an American engineer finds himself unemployed after a job prospect falls through in China. Deciding to kill some time in the Orient, Hugh spends a few days in Shanghai where he encounters a blonde woman in a green dress, pursued by sinister persons.
Weimar Germany has always held a special place in my imagination, as it has so many elements I find interesting in history and fiction. A weak moderate government, torn between the extreme Left and Right, the constant threat of a military coup, and a seedy underbelly where vice, crime, and corruption scurry, all the byproducts of a failing society. [Read more…] about Babylon Berlin & Weimar Republic Fiction