The heir to the magnificent English trading company, the Noble House… the direct descendant of the first Toranaga Shogun battling to usher his country into the modern age… a beautiful young French woman forever torn between ambition and desire… Their lives intertwine in an exotic land newly open to foreigners, gai-jin, torn apart by greed, idealism, and terrorism. Their passions mingle with monarchs and diplomats, assassins, courtesans and spies. Their fates collide in James Clavell's latest masterpiece set in nineteenth-century Japan-an unforgettable epic seething with betrayal and secrets, brutality and heroism, love and forbidden passions.