Riding the tiger

the long version

In the turbulent years of the late 1930's on the China Coast, Jack Morgan, a powerful American business tycoon, and Ana Vukovna, a sensual and deep Russian jazz singer, meet as strangers and part as lovers on the night Shanghai burns and falls to the Japanese. Together they escape to Hong Kong, but when they arrive Anna simply, vanishes. Besotted, Jack is determined to find her, but hides his anguish from his fiancée, Violet Summerhays, a beautiful but conniving Hong Kong socialite with a devastating secret of her own. As Violet begins her lavish wedding plans and Jack searches for Ana, the Japanese army advances and tragedy unfolds revealing a hidden world of murder and gun running, where dreams come at a steep price.--From back cover.