Whispering Shadows: A Novel (The Rising Dragon Series)

In this first book of the Rising Dragon series, “explore a side of Hong Kong tourists rarely experience” (Kirkus Reviews) as an expat journalist tries to crack a murder case in the “darkly beautiful, heart-wrenching” (Booklist, starred review) thriller set in China from the internationally bestselling author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats.

Once an ambitious American expat and a dedicated family man, Paul Leibovitz 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 a politically corrupt China and the Shenzhen underworld—against the wishes of a woman with whom Paul has a growing flirtation—they discover dark secrets and vestiges of the Cultural Revolution that people will go to any lengths to keep hidden. Part love story, part crime thriller, Whispering Shadows is the captivating tale of one man’s desperate search for redemption within the grip of a world superpower, a place where secrets from the past threaten to upend the future.

Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, his first novel, was an international bestseller. He lives in Berlin with his family.