In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos that reigned in China in the run-up to World War II. Semyon Kaspé, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by disaffected, antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on the orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father’s wealth. When local authorities deliberately slow-walk the search for the kidnappers, a young French diplomat takes over and launches his own investigation.
Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the true, tragic saga of Kaspé is told in the context of the larger, improbable story of the lives of the twenty thousand Jews who called Harbin home at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scott D. Seligman recounts the events that led to their arrival and their hasty exodus—and solves a crime that has puzzled historians for decades.
2023 Best Book Awards Winner in History sponsored by American Book Fest
2023 Foreword INDIES Finalist in History (source: www.amazon.com)
The Speaker
Scott D. Seligman is a national award-winning writer with special interests in both Jewish and Chinese history. A former corporate executive, he spent much of his career in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, is fluent in Mandarin and reads and writes Chinese. He headed the Beijing office of what is now the U.S.-China Business Council shortly after normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China and has worked as a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. Congress, managed a multinational public relations agency in China and served as spokesperson and communications director for a Fortune 50 company. He holds an undergraduate degree in American history from Princeton and a master’s degree from Harvard. He has written four books on early Chinese-American history, and his first Jewish-themed book, The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots that Shook New York City, won gold medals in the 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards and the 2002- 21 Reader Views Literary Awards and was a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards. His website is located at www.seligmanonline.com
PROGRAMME
Time: 8pm - 9pm Hong Kong Time (8am - 9am Washington DC time)
Venue: Online event via Zoom
Admission: HK$50 for RASHK members, HK$60 for guests/non-members
Registration: Please email membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk and provide membership number, if applicable, at the time of registration.
Please kindly complete your registration by advance payment via Stripe's payment links below (using your Credit Card):
Members ($50): https://buy.stripe.com/aEU6ru5TzgnYeha14W
Non-members / Guests ($60): https://buy.stripe.com/4gw2befu99ZAb4Y3d5
Details about the other payment option will be sent on registration. Upon receipt of payment, your registration will be confirmed by email. Registration will be closed at 12 noon on 30 April 2024. Zoom links will be sent before or by 30 April 2024.