In September 1838, a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the Ibis, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured labourers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. When the seas settle, five men have disappeared—two lascars, two convicts, and one of the passengers. Did the same storm upend the fortunes of those aboard the Anahita, an opium carrier heading toward Canton? And what fate befell those aboard the Redruth, a sturdy two-masted brig heading east of out of Cornwall? Was it the storm that altered their course or were the destinies of these passengers at the mercy of even more powerful forces?
On the grand scale of a historical epic, River of Smoke follows its storm-tossed characters to the crowded harbours of China. There, Bahram Modi, a wealthy Parsi opium merchant out of Bombay; his estranged half-Chinese son, Ah Fatt; the orphaned Paulette; and a motley collection of others whose pursuit of romance, riches, and a legendary rare flower are thrown together. All struggle to cope with their losses—and for some, unimaginable freedom—in the alleys and crowded waterways of nineteenth-century Canton. As transporting and mesmerizing as an opiate-induced dream, River of Smoke will soon be heralded as a masterpiece of twenty-first-century literature.