At the outset of the novel, the protagonist and narrator, Christopher Banks, is a young man in his twenties who has recently started working as a detective in London of the 1920s. He desires to belong to a higher class of society, initially not understanding that his work does not recommend him to the class of people to which he aspires. Having arrived in England an orphan at the age of nine, after spending his childhood in the International Settlement in Shanghai, China. He has attended private boarding schools and a good university ostensibly thanks to an inheritance from an aunt. However, the truth that Banks will learn at the end of the novel is much more sinister: A Chinese warlord has taken his mother for a concubine on condition that he provide financial security for her son.

Banks is suffering from low self-esteem, although he is not aware of it himself. His sense of confidence stems from a structure of modified memories of his childhood and his parents and their role in the society. As the novel progresses, the backbone of this structure starts to crumble, as Banks faces discrepancies between his story and the recollections of others.