Pagan Madonna

Shanghai, 1920s. The city of shadows, opium dens, and fortunes built on lies. When American Red Cross nurse Jean Norman stumbles into a pawnshop run by the slippery Ling Foo, she gets more than she bargained for: a string of beads worth killing for, and a murder she witnessed but cannot prove. Enter Anthony Cleigh, the wealthy art collector who will stop at nothing to possess them. What follows is a serpentine dance of double crosses, bought detectives, and brutal violence in a city where the powerful answer to no one. Harold MacGrath weaves a fever dream of exotic danger and romantic intrigue, where nothing is certain and chance rules all. The beads become a mirror reflecting the greed, lust, and desperation of everyone who touches them. This is pulp adventure at its most atmospheric: a world where every door opened might lead to betrayal, and the only law is the Blind Madonna of the Pagan.