Author Description

In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma, where a rare Erard grand piano is in need of repair. The piano belongs to an army surgeon - major whose unorthodox peacekeeping methods - poetry, music, and learning shared with local warring princes - have brought a tentative quiet to the southern Shan States but have elicited questions from his superiors about his loyalty. On his journey toward Burma - across Europe, the Red Sea, and India - Edgar encounters prophets and thieves, soldiers and tale-spinners, and an enchanting woman as elusive as the surgeon-major will turn out to be. And, on Burma's vast rivers and in her abandoned cities, Edgar encounters a place more mysterious and dangerous than he could ever have imagined.