domestic activities then - and, of course, there is the obligatory mole. Even the FBI weighs in - though the bureau was supposedly restricted by charter to U.S. Here are the Hong Kong police and Special Branch, the KGB, Chicoms, the CIA and the Mafia. Trying to destroy each other, the two tai-pans, of course, manipulate the Americans, the Chinese banking interests, dope smugglers and others.Ĭlavell skillfully weaves espionage into this financial power struggle. The Americans have agreed to live together sans consummation for seven years, the end of the period due during this crucial week. Into this maelstrom of machination jet two American conglomerate raiders, a young man and women, who play the tai-pans off against each other in an attempt to get a giant foot into Asia. The main plot involves a power struggle between Ian Dunross, the tai pan (head) of Struan's, Hong Kong's leading trading firm, and his archrival Quillan Gornt of Rothwell-Gornt.

But though he sketches the boat people of Aberdeen Harbor and other peasants, nothing much happens to them but the weather, most of his interest being on the moneyed elite, particularly the entrepreneurial buccaneers. He spent all of 1963 there, has been back each of the past six years, and has the geography down pat: Victoria, Kowloon, the Golden Ferry - they're all here. And Clavell refutes the old French saying, 'The most beautiful woman can't give you any more than she's got,' by getting even more out of Hong Kong than it has. Hong Kong is not one of those places where there's no there there. This place and its people caught up in an intricate multi-textured plot ensure that 'Noble House' will be Clavell's biggest triumph yet. Most of the story's action is compressed into a single week in August 1963 in Hong Kong. James Clavell, after two best sellers ('King Rat,' 1962 and 'Tai-pan,' 1966) and one blockbuster ('Shogun,' 1975), comes forth now with 'Noble House,' a 1,200-plus page book with a massive firtst printing of 250,000 copies.

Tai pan james clavell review