Although intrigued by the look at China as Communism rose to power and by the idea of Chinese spies, the characters in the book failed to connect with me and I ended up not caring what happened to them. I was frustrated by the main character and it was clear that the author has never been married in how frivolously all the characters treated marital relationships. Our book club members were all over the board about this book, but for me it just never lived up to the potential that the topic matter provided.