The mild-mannered little Roman historian Theocritus Lucius Westborough wanders into a nest of intrigue and danger when he visits the estate of Mrs. Nicholas Vayne, a plain-spoken old lady who loves jade and Chinese antiquities almost as much as she does her gentle, lovely daughter-in-law Faith. When the jade statuette of a Taoist goddess is stolen from her collection, she engages Westborough to find it. Posing as a houseguest, he is especially instructed to keep on eye on Kerry O’Connor, a hot-tempered young war correspondent of Irish descent who barely escaped the Japanese attack on Tientsin with his life. But there are others to be watched as well: the dignified Chinese scholar Dr. Liao Po-Ching, a visitor from Peking; Mrs. Vayne’s daughter Lydia and her husband Jasper Kroll, both believers in extraterrestrial beings and extrasensory perception; Mrs. Vayne’s rabbity secretary, Jethro Kroll; the beautiful and mysterious Madame Wu, a young lady of undeniable powers; Mrs. Vayne’s ne’er-do-well son Eugene; and last but not least, his troubled wife Faith, who brought the statuette back from China and whose marriage to Eugene is an unhappy charade. With war raging in Asia as well as Europe and anti-Japanese sentiment on the rise in the U.S. in the months before Pearl Harbor, elderly Dr. Westborough must sort out the mystery of Faith’s past before he can get to the truth of who stole the jade figurine, and why.

Order This Book