Paul French was born in London and lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. He received the Mystery Writers’ of America Edgar award for Best Fact Crime and a Crime Writers’ Association (UK) Dagger award for non-fiction. City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir received much praise with The Economist writing, ‘…in Mr French the city has its champion storyteller.’ Both Midnight in Peking and City of Devils are currently in development for film. His most recent book is Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson was described by the New York Times as ‘…beautifully told through meticulous historical research and examination of contemporary literature and film — gives the reader a vivid picture of what China must have been like for an American expat in the 1920s.’