Shanghai, 1920s—jazz, opium, and beautiful illusions. Western colonial powers rule the city like gods… until the Russians arrive.

Fleeing the Bolsheviks, thousands of White émigrés pour into Shanghai. They take any work they can find, enduring brutal conditions for a bowl of rice—shattering the colonial myth of white supremacy in front of the Chinese locals. Meanwhile, the Soviet government quietly fans the flames of revolution, plotting to drive out the British, Americans, and French, and claim the ancient Celestial Empire as the USSR’s crown jewel.

Among the new arrivals is Klim Rogov, a sharp-tongued journalist and former aristocrat, alongside his wife, Nina, a woman whose keen mind and fearless entrepreneurial spirit are matched only by her irresistible allure. She is the center of his life. But within days of their refugee ship’s arrival, Nina disappears—with another man.

Her companion is no romantic rival Klim can understand: a small, gaunt former prisoner of war, a musician with missing fingers. Why Nina left for him is unthinkable, unless she had a reason Klim cannot yet see.

Determined to rebuild his life, Klim descends into Shanghai’s underworld—a shadowy maze of arms dealers, treacherous port taverns, and high-stakes political games that could alter the fate of nations. His diary becomes a strange, dark travel guide: to a city on the brink of chaos and to an embittered soul, crushed by betrayal yet still clinging to hope for a miracle.

But when Klim finally learns the truth about Nina’s disappearance, he must decide: is it a truth he can bear to live with?