When a young man is bested in a gladiatorial contest by an older Quirt, he insists on finding out where Quirt came from--a quest that will lead him into a familial scandal generations deep.

The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy. Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth century an Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion era with a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled...