It's Barr's story, and some of his subalterns, and that of his young English wife Amelia, that fill the pages of this lavish and episodic first novel--a book that's jammed with wonderfully conducted battle scenes between the Englishmen and pirates; a war between Chinese bandits and the foreign settlers; tender, awkward moments of conjugal affection, difficult childbirth, expatriate longing, desire and death.