Clavell, James

When a tiny wizard whisks seven-year-old Patricia and her crutches from her home in Australia to Japan, she encounters his family, an evil ghoul, and the hope of a magic cure for her physical handicap.

Under the eyes of the KGB, the CIA, and the People's Republic of China, British and American businessmen maneuver for control of Hong Kong's oldest trading house in a torrid atmosphere of easy money, smuggled guns, and natural disaster.

A narrative of conflicting cultures, loyalties, motivations, and traditions in early-seventeenth-century Japan, involving the powerful and powerhungry Lord Toranaga, the ambitious Englishman, Blackthorne, and the Lady Mariko, a Catholic convert in love with the barbarian Englishman.