White Shanghai, a Novel of The Roaring Twenties in China

Dear gods of luck, take away your golden coins, your scrolls of wisdom, and peaches of longevity. Send me beautiful Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy. She is who to call in moments of danger. And now is precisely this moment. This woman, Nina, came to Shanghai in 1922, along with thousands of penniless Russian refugees fleeing the Bolsheviks. But she didn't want to join the ranks of the poor and desperate. She was a fraud! She set up a fake Czechoslovakian Consulate and used her diplomatic status to trade in wine and arms! She had brains and courage. In those crazy days China was a melting pot of imperialism, communism, and *** trade. What would you do if you came there with no money and no documents? Shanghai was the most modern, most cosmopolitan city in Asia. But Chinese nationalists and their political advisers from the Soviet Union launched a new civil war to finish off the ruling warlords and foreign devils. The world of White Shanghai so carefully fashioned by Westerners in their fenced concessions started to crack under the pressure. God save you, my dearest. I'm not your ally, not your general. I'm a stargazer, who foretold that my life would be tied to yours. How can I deny my own prophesy?