- ホーム
- > 洋書
Full Description
Gold Medal for the 2024 IPPY Award
Winner of the 2023 Best Book Award from American Book Fest
Finalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book Award
In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos that reigned in China in the run-up to World War II. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a three-country struggle for control of Manchuria-an area some called China's "Wild East"-and an explosive mixture of nationalities, religions, and ideologies. Semyon KaspÉ, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by disaffected, antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on the orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father's wealth. When local authorities deliberately slow-walk the search for the kidnappers, a young French diplomat takes over and launches his own investigation.
Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the true, tragic saga of KaspÉ is told in the context of the larger, improbable story of the lives of the twenty thousand Jews who called Harbin home at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scott D. Seligman recounts the events that led to their arrival and their hasty exodus-and solves a crime that has puzzled historians for decades.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
A Note on Language and Currency
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
1. Tug of War
2. Harbin-Cosmopolis in the North
3. White Russians and Antisemitism
4. The KaspÉs
5. Lydia
6. Invasion
7. Two Toxic Elements
8. An Unholy Alliance
9. Kidnapped
10. Search
11. Letters
12. Playing with Fire
13. Arrest
14. Lies
15. Not Criminals but Heroes
16. No Longer Safe
17. The First Trial
18. The Second Trial
19. Powerful Influences
20. What Really Happened
21. The Fugu Plan
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Glossary and Gazetteer
Further Reading
Notes
Index
