Shanghai is two cities: one a sprawling, sinful Oriental beehive of nearly 3,500,000 Chinese, the other the 60,000 foreigners living along the Whangpoo in the snug, smug plutocracy of the International Settlement and the more raffish French Concession. Since the Japanese took over the Chinese city in 1937, the Settlement has been an island in a sea of intrigue and guerrilla warfare. Round it have prowled gunmen, tough, graft-hungry Japanese soldiers, the gangster bravos and police of the puppet Nanking Government.
The taipans, the "Great Managers" of Shanghai's foreign businesses, know...