Robert S. Elegant Knihy

This novel transports the reader back to the savagery and the passion, to the opulence and sensuality, and to the great adventure of the last days of a dying dynasty.

A grand tale of intrigue in nineteenth-century China, where imperial rule is crumbling as the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion rage, from the author of Manchu. Loyalty is put to cruel test in Shanghai, where Jewish merchant Saul Haleevie and his longtime Chinese partner, Aisek Lee, have weathered hardship and distrust to build a thriving business. When Aisek is falsely accused of “abomination” for causing his mother’s suicide, their world is shattered. Now, Saul must save his friend no matter the cost, navigating a brutal and corrupt penal system that could bring about his own ruin as well.   Meanwhile, the quest for true love governs the fate of Saul’s wayward daughter, Fronah. Consorting with the Westerners now thronging Shanghai but truly comfortable only in her Jewish-Asiatic identity, she ends up destroying one man and confounding another.   Love and deception also entwine in the imperial palace, where the “Virtuous Concubine” Yehenala contrives to bear the opium-eating, syphilitic Hsien Feng emperor’s only son, thus laying the foundation for her elevation to the pinnacle of command in China as the formidable empress dowager. She wins the power battle, but it is beyond her to win the war, for by then China faces not just the collapse of another imperial dynasty, but the end of the millennial imperial system of rule, threatening the lives and loves of all.   This compelling saga of nineteenth-century China is filled with “intricate shuttlecock diplomacy, ceremonial/battle action, family saga/romance—all polished to an entertaining high gloss” (Kirkus Reviews).  

The Seeking

1999: Die noch intakte Naturlandschaft der Pyrenäen soll dem Bau einer Autobahn der Superlative zum Opfer fallen. Auch die Existenz der letzten noch lebenden Bären Europas ist bedroht. Einzig der Multimillionär Amadeus Brinks setzt sich für die Rechte der Tiere ein.

Breit angelegter historischer Roman. Im Mittelpunkt eine junge venezianische Adelige, die zur Zeit der Renaissance am Hofe der Medicis in ein dramatisches Ränkespiel gerät.

In d. Geschichte e. Amerikanerin, d. 1921 nach Schanghai kommt u. dort d. Bruder ihrer chines. Freundin heiratet, spiegeln sich d. polit.-revolutionären Ereignisse bis zur Gründung d. Volksrepublik China.

Singapur 1955: Der amerikanische Kunsthändler Miles Corrigan wird wider Willen in das Machtspiel eines chinesischen Geheimbundes verwickelt. Ein verschollen geglaubtes wertvolles Rollbild bringt nicht nur ihn in tödliche Gefahr.