Shanghai 1937. One sultry evening, Jake Greenberg, an American expatriate and owner of a fashionable casino, leaves a restaurant in a section of the city filled with Jewish refugees who have fled from Hitler. The refugees, made homeless and destitute by the Nazis, have come to Shanghai because it was the only place in the world that would accept them.
Without warning, Jake is caught in a barrage of gunfire that kills two strangers beside him. Was he the target? Is Shanghai's notorious Green Gang after him again? With the help of his partner, Kuan, and his very pregnant wife, Claire, a savvy former newspaper reporter for the Shanghai Daily, they set out to find the answer and do it quickly.
Surprisingly, their investigation does not lead to the Greens, but deep into the world of Shanghai's Jewish community and to three Jews--a sheltered scientist with German secrets, his bright young daughter, and a brave and beautiful American woman. After all of them is the Shanghai branch of the Gestapo. Jake must get them to the safety of America no matter what it takes.