The Shanghai Incident

by Bryan Methods

Overview

The pursuit of an international crime syndicate sends British vigilante butler Mr. Scant and his protégé Oliver Diplexito on a globe-hopping trip. After defeating a sinister secret society in Oliver's home country of England, the unlikely pair has arrived in Paris, searching for Mr. Scant's missing niece. What they discover are hints of a conspiracy that leads them all the way to Shanghai, China. Each clue they find only leads to more questions. That is, until Mr. Scant, Oliver, and their allies realize they're the only hope of stopping a plot against China's child emperor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512467628
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/2017
Series:	Master Diplexito and Mr. Scant , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	11 - 12 Years

About the Author

Bryan Methods grew up in the sleepy village of Crowhurst, on the south coast of the United Kingdom.

After studying English at Trinity College, Cambridge, he found work as a professional drummer, which lasted as long as it took for the singer and guitarist to fall out and split up the band. He then returned to Cambridge for a Master’s in Screen Media and Cultures, specializing in animation.

He is in his final year of his doctoral thesis on the poetry of World War I at Royal Holloway, University of London, but currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. He is interested in alternative Japanese fashion, music, and cosplay. He also enjoys fencing, video games, and capoeira.

Editorial Reviews

2017-07-17
Having (they think) vanquished one shadowy secret society in their first exploit (The Thief's Apprentice, 2016), young Oliver and Mr. Scant, his claw-handed valet/mentor, tackle several more in their second.When the search for Mr. Scant's missing teenage niece, Elspeth, brings the plucky white protagonists to a China seething under European domination in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, they are quickly cast into a cauldron of intrigue. This is stirred not only by the previously met Tri-Loom, but also by the equally shadowy Star and Stone Association and the Viridian Clan—one of which has been kidnapping French youths as part of a baroque scheme to assassinate the 5-year-old Xuantong Emperor and so fuel a new effort to throw off the foreign yoke. Ultimately, following a proper round of revelations, betrayals, and desperate heroics, the scheme is scotched. But even though (aside from giving the Chinese a light wash of inscrutability) Methods largely manages to avoid ethnic stereotypes and allows his female characters a modicum of agency to boot, the episode is largely a pastiche of standard-issue elements that bogs down in inconsequential meetings and discussions, general to-ing and fro-ing, and such missed opportunities as a dirigible voyage from Britain to Shanghai that is done in four pages. A plodding sequel showing signs that the series is already running low on inspirational steam. (Adventure. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews