Winter, 1919, Siberia in the chaos of the Russian Civil War. Jake Greenberg, investigating the murder of three Americans, escapes on the last train from Omsk on the Transsiberian RR, fighting blizzards and partisans, while hunting the murderer on board.

1937. Jewish refugees flood Shanghai. One of them, a Jewish scientist carrying stolen Nazi secrets, is pursued by the local Gestapo. He, his young daughter, and a brave American woman must escape violence and intrigue and get to America.

China, 1921. Jake Greenberg has just delivered guns to Mao-lin. War is imminent and the city has been shaken by the brutal murder of a famous American missionary. Jake must find the murderer as enemy airplanes begin bombing the city.

In the heat of a labor election, a leading candidate and a local reporter are murdered. The police arrest Max Eisen, a young and poor Jewish immigrant working in a steel mill, but Max finds allies. A famous lawyer helps him, and his beautiful daughter takes an interest in his cause.

Shanghai, 1929. Jake Greenberg, the owner of a fashionable casino, is drawn into a daring British plot to steal a Japanese Enigma machine. The plan fails. Agents are murdered, and Jake pursues the traitor who killed them.

China, 1926. Jake Greenberg, an American living in Shanghai, arrives in Manchouli, a dusty little city straddling the Chinese-Russian border. Jakes mission is to smuggle two Russians across the border into China. They have a secret that the communists cant allow the world to know. But, as soon as he crosses the border, he senses something is wrong. Soon, the secret police are at his door and Jake and the Russians are on the run.

Shanghai, International Settlement, 1925. At a Chinese opera, Jake Greenberg, an American expatriate sits in a choice private box. Suddenly the door opens, gun fire booms out, and two people with him are dead. But the police cannot go beyond its borders to find the killer. Jake steps into that breach. The search for the killer leads to a half-crazy Chinese warlord, a glamorous film star, and a yet-to-be famous Communist leader, Chou En-lai.

Shanghai, 1941. Jake Greenberg, an American expatiate, owns a casino in the International Settlement. Certain Japanese officers want it. Jake barely escapes a bombing, one of his casino people is murdered by the Japanese, and a newspaper friend is kidnapped. He strikes back, working secretly with American intelligence and the Chinese underground. Then, one night in December, the Japanese invade. Jake has only hours to save his friends and escape.

Jake Greenberg, who lived in Shanghai before World War II, is now a major in the US Army in China. He is ordered into Japanese-occupied Shanghai to find what has gone wrong with the escape line that has saved downed American airmen. He is to find what happened and fix it fast. To do it, Jake must deal with murder, a fractious underground, traitors, and the Kempeitai, the Japanese Gestapo...