Blue Mountain

Intricately plotted and historically detailed, this novel set in China between 1907 and 1927 completes the trilogy begun in Red Barbarian and White Poppy, about that country's Opium Wars. When Wei Ta-yu, nicknamed Didi, arrives in Shanghai, he hopes to carry out the ""life-duty'' bequeathed to him by his grandfather, Wei Jin-see: abolition of the flourishing opium trade. Didi soon becomes a zealous official of the Opium Suppression Bureau, but his avaricious uncle, Great Fish, is participating in the opium black market through his association with Big-ears Doo, Shanghai's notorious underworld chieftain. Fish, who callously murdered Didi's aunt and father for material gain, also masterminds the killing of Ah-fet, Jin-see's trusted friend. While Fish and Big-ears prosper and ingratiate themselves with Sun Yat-sen, Didi weds Ah-fet's daughter Belle, an outspoken Communist activist. Unbeknownst to the newlyweds, who quickly ascend in the Chinese Communist party hierarchy, Big-ears intends to annihilate every troublesome Red ``peasant-lover.'' Gaan ably portrays the political turnmoil and criminal acitivity of early 20th century China, but readers unfamiliar with the trilogy's previous volumes may find this one confusing. (June)