Japanese treatment of Chinese and Allied citizens whom they captured, particularly if they suspected them of espionage, was horrific. I describe some of the barbaric treatment of British and American political prisoners in the book.

261

(Also), the fact that businessmen carried on not just working under Japanese occupation, but producing critically needed war material for the Japanese war effort. This hadn't been revealed before, and it was the single aspect of the book that provoked the most controversy in Britain when it came out.

231

The results were actually rather meager, ... and yet all the powers put enormous resources into intelligence in the Far East.

176

It was the espionage intelligence center of the Far East. It's a very colorful and exotic arena. Shanghai in that period was in some ways an attractive and sinister place.

162

The real wars were between the Japanese and the Germans, the British and the Americans, and the different factions of Chinese.

152

(He) was a Russian, born in Latvia, who was an actor, singer, gangster and ran a whole network of agents in Shanghai for the Japanese during the war, ... He ended up, though, working for the Americans after the war. Before the war, he worked for the British, fell out with the British, and then turned for the Japanese.

144

I was drawn into it, ... I felt I had a ringside seat at this mixture of the theater of the absurd and theater of cruelty.

83

[Therefore, Shanghai was also something else:] It was the espionage intelligence center of the Far East, ... It's a very colorful and exotic arena. Shanghai in that period was in some ways an attractive and sinister place.

77