First published back in 1981, this is a timely reprint of a #1 bestselling historical novel.  Young Luke Trewarne hopes to make his fortune, but having seen first hand what opium does to people he is anxious not to trade in it.  But this is where all the big money is made, and he soon finds that everything comes back to it.  He has some unusual allies in a young "water gypsy" and the feared Tartar hero of the "Bannermen" army, but he is still going to need all his wits about him just to survive.

How interesting and daring to write a book about one of Britain’s most shameful historical chapters.  Thompson does not flinch from describing the horrors and squalor that the opium trade and the subsequent war brought to China, and this is certainly an action-packed page-turner.  As well as the negative side of this time and place there is also plenty about what made China such a magical and unique place, and Luke falls as much under its spell as he does with Kuei.  This is the sort of historical novel that gets people interested in reading this type of fiction, as there is so much packed into it and it does have the knack of transporting the reader into a period and location not often depicted.