In the City of Dragons

As Mike Smith’s second book, “In the City of Dragons” has real events at its core. The narrative has been adapted and some flavour and colour of the period added to make them more readable and informative. The people are considerately if thinly disguised and are as real as when Smith knew them or was told about them at the time.

Some of the stories in this volume come a little closer to the present but the setting overall is still end- of- empire which Smith grew up in and which, through Hong Kong, spent much of my adult life in. This long fin de sicle association of mine is the reason Smith could not resist including here one story about my childhood in that jewel of the imperial crown and the most brilliant possession of them all, India.