N.I. Low depicts the Japanese Occupation period with impeccable accuracy, with sharp insight and pathos. What happened at the concentration camps, the massacre on Changi Beach, the round-up of 'comfort' girls, the activities of the black marketeers, life as a servant of the Japanese Government, the story of Lim Bo Seng. As the late Victor Purcell wrote, this is more than a graphic account of a grim period; it is a distinctive and very unusual piece of writing - a combination of the English outlook with that peculiar Chinese satire that does not culminate in a razor's edge, but ends in a sort of wry resignation.