⭐⭐ Red Roulette by Shum
| Full Title | Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China |
|---|---|
| Authors | Desmond Shum, Tim Chiou |
| Year Published | 2021 |
| Date Read | September 12, 2021 |
| Rating | 2/5 stars |
I first heard of this book via articles about how Whitney Duan, the author’s ex-wife, called Shum to urge him not to publish the book. According to reports, it was the first he’d heard from her since she ‘vanished’ in 2017. Based on that, as well as the subtitle of the book itself, I was expecting something akin to Browder’s Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice.
Overall though, I came away disappointed. The book spent an inordinate amount of time on background, which to me seemed included more out of completeness of an autobiography rather than due to an assessment by the writer that readers would actually enjoy or be interested in those sections. It also rubbed me the wrong way that the author and his wife were explicitly working within the system to get ahead themselves, not attempting to create some
change. The contrast between that behavior and the usage of the quote “better to speak out and die than keep silent and live” in the epigraph is certainly peculiar to me. Perhaps if I had been patient this would have eventually materialized, but I saw none in the first 4 hours / 43% of the book.
Would recommend to those who are specifically interested in the author’s life, and perhaps to those that have some personal attachment to China. Have a hard time recommending to anyone else.