China Blues - Hardcover

Longfellow, Pamela

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385260482 ISBN 13: 9780385260480

Publisher: Doubleday, 1989

Synopsis

Her marriage to charming but corrupt D.A. James Hamilton crumbling, heiress Elizabeth Sian Stafford begins an affair with Chinese underworld figure Li Kwan Won, unwitting that the two will clash for control of Jazz age San Francisco

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Offbeat, unruly characters and vibrant atmosphere spill over the pages of this promising first novel set in San Francisco during Prohibition. Lizzie Stafford has every little thing a rich girl could want. But the view from Nob Hill pales in comparison to the world her flat-broke journalist pal Kit Downie mines for his stories. The joint is jumping at the Blue Canary, a lavish brothel run by Rose St. Lorraine, a Mae West-type madam with a tart tongue and a soft heart. There Lizzie can forget her faithless, politically ambitious husband and dabble in forbidden love with a cool-eyed Chinese gangster while Kit pines for her, and Dido, an icy, black chanteuse, longs for Kit. Bootlegging, the Tong Wars, smoky speakeasies, inept mobsters and the Teapot Dome scandal zigzag through these pages like streaks of lightning. The Jazz Era leaps to life, but the narrative, which starts out with a bang, bogs down toward the end in sticky romance and overwrought plot twists.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

San Francisco, 1923. Spoiled heiress Lizzie Stafford Hamilton, unloved by her ambitious, unfaithful husband James, falls for an aphoristic Chinese bootlegger. Meanwhile, her long-time admirer, hardened newsie Kit Dowie, suffers quietly, jotting everything down. Klondike Madame Rose St. Lorraine administers the finest nightclub on the coast, patronized by Warren G. Harding himself (seeking consolation for Teapot Dome troubles). But rival bootleggers, tied to ruthless but incompetent James Hamilton, plan to cut off the competition at the legs. The vogue for including historical personages is observed: Louis Armstrong, Dashiell Hammett, and King Oliver are here. Lacking are fresh characters and a surprising narrative. Poor.
- Timothy L. Zindel, Hastings Coll. of the Law, San Francisco
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0385260482
• ISBN 13: 9780385260480
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 389