Loyalty is put to a cruel test on the streets of Shanghai, where Jewish silk merchant Saul Heleevie tries to save his long-time Chinese business partner from a false accusation of abomination in relation to his mother’s suicide and the brutal and corrupt penal system seeking to punish him. Meanwhile in the imperial palace, love and deception entwine as the “Virtuous Concubine” Yehenala contrives to bear the opium-eating, syphilitic emperor’s only son in an effort to lay the foundation for her elevation to the pinnacle power in China as the formidable empress dowager. This compelling saga of nineteenth-century China is filled with “intricate shuttlecock diplomacy, ceremonial battle action, family saga romance—all polished to an entertaining high gloss” (