1922 Tokyo. Harry Niles is a wild child an American boy in a strange country ignored by his missionary parents. So Harry begins to lead his own life in the Tokyo underworld. One night he is charged with delivering a painting to an enigmatic figure the samurai Ishigami. It is an encounter that will haunt Harry Niles forever . . . 1937 Nanking. China is under attack. The Japanese army is brutally and systematically murdering and raping the local population. In the midst of this horror Harry finds himself face to face once again with Lieutenant Ishigami. But for the samurai warrior their meeting leads to the greatest possible dishonour - public humiliation. 1941 Tokyo. With the attack on Pearl Harbour only days away Japan is on the brink of war with the United States. Harry Niles has become a man of many faces. Allying himself with both sides he treads a dangerous - but profitable - path between the fading glory of the Chrysantheum Club where the citys banking and industrial elite meet and the shadowy Tokyo underworld. An impressively clever evocation of a time in which a cast of fallible complext characters perform an elaborate dance of death and deception The Times