Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China

ISBN: 1640125841

Author: Seligman, Scott D.

Condition: New

Gold Medal for the 2024 IPPY AwardWinner of the 2023 Best Book Award from American Book FestFinalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book AwardIn 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 Chinas Wild East-and an explosive mixture of nationalities, religions, and ideologies. Semyon Kasp, 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 fathers 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 Kasp 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.