"In 1943Captain Caldwell, born in China, is given a high OSS commission and shipped off to work with Chiang Kai-shek's secret police chief, Tai Li; he becomes convinced that the corruption and bestiality of Chiang's regime will pull it down. In this extraordinarily direct narrative, Caldwell contrasts the government's unabashed aping of fascist models with the beauty of the countryside and the culture and the ordeal of the...