Shanghai in the twenties was a fabulous place, a gaudy, immoral, violent, unjust, optimistic free-for-all where rickshaws competed with Rolls-Royces and a wealthy Englishman, American, or Japanese who spent an afternoon at the dog races might be inconvenienced by the sight of a public beheading on his way to the club for cocktails. It was also an improbable model for the future where racial barriers were rigid in certain neighborhoods and completely lacking in others only a few blocks away. There was almost no place in history where the past and the future collided with so much drama

Eager to repent for his wealth, society detective, Zephyr Davies, agrees to assist an old friend when she asks him to look into the baffling death of her husband, one of five men found dead under very unusual circumstances in a crowded speakeasy. Assisted by his twenty-one year old Chinese friend, No Sin, Davies' investigation takes him across America in the early days of the Great Depression Though new to the United States, and still learning English, No Sin is far from a fawning sidekick. Temperamental, with a keen intellect, he is full of pride and has a biting sense of humor. Despite a...