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In 1952, an unworldly British newlywed named Claire arrives in Hong Kong with her engineer husband. She finds work as a music tutor for the daughter of the Chens, a wealthy Chinese couple, and takes up with Will, their Anglo driver.

At first, this somewhat passive Englishwoman seems an odd choice for the title character. A likelier candidate might have been Melody Chen’s cousin Trudy, the free-spirited Eurasian beauty with whom Will, we learn in flashbacks, launched an affair on the eve of the Japanese invasion of the city nine years ago. But eventually the subtle Claire earns her top billing.

The intricate, hothouse plot alternates between wartime and the post-war years, and Lee is at her best when describing the horrors of the blood-soaked occupation. She paints a compelling portrait of the devastating choices people make in order to survive, even if that means betraying friends, family and lovers. Sparkling Trudy breezes through much of the paranoid era – admired, whispered about, but ultimately doomed. Her downfall, though telegraphed from the start, still comes as a shock.

A subplot involving the disappearance of priceless Chinese artefacts intrigues, but after dropping hints throughout her story and slowly building mystery, Lee reveals the truth a bit too carelessly, through awkward exposition posing as conversations between characters. Once the secrets are laid bare, though, their legacy affects everyone – even Claire, the insular society’s outsider. It’s her voyage of self-discovery that prompts the unveiling of those long-shrouded secrets, kick-starting her own uncertain future. Unfortunately, the book ends here, and the reader is left with the frustrating but tantalizing sense that the most interesting chapters in Claire’s story are yet to be written.

Carolyn Juris