James Clavell · 1981 · thriller

James Clavell's 1981 Asian Saga novel. Hong Kong, 1963: Ian Dunross, tai-pan of Struan's, has eight days to save the Noble House from ruin. Bankers, spies, smugglers and old enemies close in across Central, Kowloon and Happy Valley - and then fire, flood and a hillside collapsing above the Mid-Levels turn a financial war into a fight for survival.

1. 1
   Central

   In the towers of Central, Ian Dunross takes up the tai-pan's chair at Struan's - the Noble House - to find it days from collapse, and must gamble against his old rival Quillan Gornt and a Shanghai banker circling for the kill.

2. 2
   Kowloon

   Across the harbour in Kowloon, smugglers, gold runners and the men of the tongs go about business the boardrooms never mention - and both the CIA and Chinese intelligence hunt a set of stolen files that could ruin everyone.

3. 3
   Happy Valley

   At the Happy Valley racecourse all Hong Kong meets, and fortunes turn on a horse and a whisper. Dunross plays for the backing he needs while his enemies count the hours until Struan's must find money it does not have.

4. 4
   Aberdeen

   In Aberdeen harbour, a floating restaurant crowded with the colony's great and good catches fire and goes down in the dark water - a night of drowning and rescue that changes the balance between every faction in the city.

5. 5
   Mid-Levels

   Then the rains come, and a saturated hillside above the Mid-Levels gives way, burying apartment blocks and the people in them - and in the mud and the digging, the fate of the Noble House is finally decided.