Tom Lai Books in Order

The Tom Lai series is Matthew Legare's noir view of Shanghai in the 1930s, a city where nightclubs, foreign concessions, criminal gangs, diplomats, and rival political movements all share the same crowded streets. The books follow Tom Lai, a Chinese American expatriate whose connections help him survive, but also make it hard to stay out of other people's schemes.

Tom begins Shanghai Twilight as the owner of the Twilight Club, a successful nightclub. He supports the Chinese Nationalist Party and hopes to build a new life with Mei-chen, but the city is already on edge as relations between China and Japan worsen. When Shanghai's Green Gang accuses Tom of spying for Japan, he has only a short time to clear his name.

That accusation sends him through a dangerous web of gangsters, corrupt police, intelligence agents, and people he thought he knew. Tom is not a detective by trade. He is a businessman who understands the city and its social rules, then has to use that knowledge when the rules stop protecting him.

Shanghai does not offer many safe corners.

The second novel, Reds and Whites, jumps ahead to August 1937. Tom's nightclub has been destroyed, and he now operates an import-export business for the Green Gang while struggling with the debts he owes them. A Russian émigré offers him a job that could solve his financial problems: help smuggle a Red Army officer out of Shanghai.

The task brings Tom into contact with White Russian agents, Soviet operatives, Japanese naval intelligence, and old enemies. War is closing in on the city, and Tom must work out which allies are real before the competing demands around him leave no way out. The story expands the series' political scope while keeping its focus on one man trying to regain control of his life.

These are historical thrillers with a classic noir mood. Tom moves through glittering clubs, smoky rooms, waterfront businesses, and streets where information can be as valuable as money. His Chinese American background also leaves him navigating questions of loyalty and belonging, both in Shanghai and in the wider conflict around it.

Start with Shanghai Twilight, which establishes Tom, Mei-chen, the Green Gang, and the city's tense political landscape. Then read Reds and Whites for a later, more desperate chapter in Tom's story. Together, the books offer fast, character-led mysteries for readers who want prewar Shanghai, espionage, and a protagonist who keeps finding himself in trouble far bigger than his original plan.