I dunno, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was easy enough to follow. 1q84 sounds more or less in that same range. But unicorn skulls?
A while back I read Fairbairn & Sykes' classic "
Shooting to Live," which is kind of a how-to for police about organizing firearms. Unfortunately it was very brief on the subject of 1920s-1930s Shanghai, where the authors estimated the police fired more bullets in a month than Chicago police fired in a year - possibly the most crime-ridden city on the planet at the time. Still worth reading though. As it was written in 1942 (either in England or the United States), it is of at least passing interest to scholars of wartime clandestine and espionage activities (Fairbairn was an instructor in England and for the OSS; I believe Sykes was as well although he died around 1945, 15 years before his famous partner who kept on training other groups). There is also a paper target of a man in traditional Chinese garb with slanty eyes
Some interesting facts: Under their leadership, the Shanghai police instituted many firsts or unusual first practices:
- One of the first "kill houses" (called a "mystery house" in the book or a "horror house" elsewhere, including unstable flooring that could be triggered to give way by pit operators) and an all-indoor firing range tailored for personalized practice due to their training regimen preferences
- Use of submachine guns (the Thompson) against heavily armed criminals (who probably had their own models)
- Some kind of armored vest, possibly aluminum, as well as a type of bullet-protective riot shield to hold with one hand or strap to the arm (the authors said that the high-velocity, penetrating Luger rounds were the scariest for police officers; think of Resident Evil 4's Red 9 pistol for the model - Mauser C96)
- First team of marksmen for hostage and barricade situations (set up by Sykes I believe - perhaps he was more the firearms expert whereas Fairbairn was clearly more interested in martial arts, see DEFENDU)
- Mounted machine guns on top of police armored vehicles (reportedly Fairbairn shot at some Japanese warplanes bombing Chinese on at least one occasion)
- First SWAT type organization (the "Flying Squad," although a group of the same name existed in London, but I believe only the Shanghai group had features we would clearly recognize today as being SWAT-like)
A lot of this is just what I've gathered from reading scattered online sources (i.e. some scattered forum posts and peoples' considerations) but clearly the Shanghai Municipal Police were far ahead of their time. They employed people from many parts of the world - many of the armorers were Russians - and kept some form of peace and order in the most challenging of circumstances.
Fairbairn was the right honourable boss. I've read that he visited one of the local Japanese generals once (remember that Shanghai was an "international settlement," one of the consequences of the Opium Wars and the land grabs by foreign powers) and heard shooting. Reportedly the Japanese had about 150 Chinese, including a fair number of pregnant women, in a hut and they were likely to be shot. Well, Fairbairn turned to his host and asked if they wouldn't consider turning them over - "you know where to find me, and I know where to find you." Of course they were released!
Also, if you like old fashioned armored cars,
have fun!
. But yeah, a "greatest" collection missing At the Mountains of Madness is almost criminal.
