Nightfall Over Shanghai

It’s 1944 and the Japanese are losing the war, but Shanghai is more dangerous than ever, particularly for the Adler family. After fleeing Nazi Europe, Dr. Franz Adler and his teenage daughter, Hannah, have adjusted to life in their strange adopted city, but they are now imprisoned in the Shanghai Ghetto for refugee Jews.

Franz is compelled to work as a surgeon for the hated Japanese military, while struggling to keep the city’s woefully undersupplied refugee hospital functioning. Meanwhile, his beloved Eurasian wife, fellow surgeon Sunny, delivers a baby boy born to a neighborhood teenager who wants nothing to do with the child; Sunny is determined to raise him as her own. When an enigmatic priest arrives at the hospital with an injured man who turns out be a downed American pilot, Sunny is recruited into a spy ring, providing crucial information to the Allies about the city’s port. Inadvertently, Hannah is drawn into the perilous operation, just as she becomes drawn to the controversial movement of Zionism and a Jewish homeland in Palestine. When the Japanese launch a major new offensive against the Chinese, Franz is forced to do the unthinkable: he is sent inland to work as a field doctor on the frontlines. There, he must contend with his tangled loyalties, aerial bombings overhead, and his uncertain feelings for a vulnerable Canadian nurse.

In 1945, American B-52s begin bombing Shanghai in strategic raids, putting thousands of Chinese citizens and refugees in grave danger. While the war seems to be winding down in the Far East, many questions remain unanswered for the Adlers. As the bombers circle ominously overhead, they must now struggle for more than simple safety. For the first time in many war-riven years, they now face the challenge of re-envisioning their lives, and the prospect of forging a hopeful path forward for the future—if they can first survive.