A group of foreigners in the northeastern town of Shishan finds the status quo upset when Helen Frances, a young woman with a middle class upbringing but a fatal flaw, arrives and falls in love with the Hon Henry Manners. Will she betray her solid but possibly rather dull fiance While Helen Frances and Manners meet in the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure - Shishan's brothel, and the centre for all social activity in the town - the Chinese, who were quarrelling among themselves, are directing their anger towards all foreigners, and the position of Helen Frances, her father, her fiance and their friends, is becoming very unsure.

The most astonishing range of characters awaits you in this novel; the wicked brothel-keeper Madam Liu and her sadistic son Ren Ren, the pragmatic, rational missionary Dr Airton, the American zealot Septimus Harding, the equivocal Mandarin. Not to mention the wonderfully complicated anti-hero Henry Manners, the prostitutes Fan Yimei and Shen Ping, the bandit Iron Man Wang, the Mongolian shaman. And the ingenue, Helen Frances herself, whose innocence covers an unorthodox curiosity . . .