Shanghai Alley

Gene Castle gets worked over by goons, thrown from the roof of a whorehouse and his oldest friend is gunned down - it's May 1936, and he'll have to hump it to earn his 25 bucks a day, plus expenses. Shanghai Alley, set in Vancouver's Chinatown in the 1930s, is a detective novel in the classic tradition, filled with intrigue and heroism but with a depth of character eloquent of all good fiction. Jim Christy writes in a telegraphic style evoking the golden age of the noir thrillers, while at the same time delving into the darker zeitgeist of our own era.

Vancouver, Chinatown, 1936. While the bread lines get longer and the whole world goes crazy, wise-cracking gumshoe Gene Castle has his own worries. In Shanghai Alley, while on the trail of missing union funds, he goes fist to fist with corrupt cops, sleazy politicians and ruthless gangsters.

Jim Christy is a writer, artist and tireless traveller. The author of twenty books, including poetry, short stories, novels, travel and biography, Christy has been praised by writers as diverse as Charles Bukowski and Sparkle Hayter. His travels have taken him from the Yukon to the Amazon, Greenland to Cambodia. He has covered wars and exhibited his art internationally. Raised in inner-city Philadelphia, he moved to Toronto when he was twenty-three years old and became a Canadian citizen at the first opportunity. He currently makes his home on BC''s Sunshine Coast.