In this dazzling thriller, internationally bestselling author Joseph Kanon gives us his richest setting yet: pre-World War II Shanghai, where glamour and squalor exist side by side and murder is just a cost of doing business. A love affair against all odds, a city dancing on the rim of a volcano-Shanghai is the story of a political haven that becomes a minefield of conflicting loyalties.

Daniel Lohr, sensing that the Nazis are closing in on the Jews, leaves his dying father in Berlin and boards a ship to Shanghai. His passage is dependent upon him delivering a package to his shady uncle, his father's brother, upon arrival. Daniel has no idea what the package contains. On board is Leah, also fleeing the Nazis. She and Daniel conduct a passionate but brief shipboard affair, but are separated as soon as the ship docks in Shanghai. Will he ever see her again?

Daniel is immediately plunged into his uncle's seductive and corrupt world, and becomes involved in the launch of a new nightclub, the biggest, best and most glitzy in town. When violence breaks out and lives are at risk, he finds himself drawn irrevocably into the terrifying underworld that is wartime Shanghai.

Beautifully atmospheric and intricately plotted, this masterful thriller marks exciting new ground for an author hailed by the Sunday Times as 'the most accomplished spy novelist working today'.

PRAISE FOR JOSEPH KANON:

'Heart-poundingly suspenseful' Washington Post

'Joseph Kanon owns this corner of the literary landscape' LEE CHILD

'Kanon is fast approaching the complexity and relevance not just of le Carre and Greene but even of Orwell' New York Times

'Joseph Kanon continues to demonstrate that he is up there with the very best . . . he is the master of the shadows of the era' The Times

'Sensational! No one writes period fiction with the same style and suspense - not to mention substance - as Joseph Kanon' Scott Turow

'Thoroughly absorbing, a thoughtful and subtle evocation of a place and era' Sunday Telegraph

'The perfect combination of intrigue and accurate history brought to life' Alan Furst