Vietnam's heady tropical landscape captivates fifteen year-old Joseph Sherman on a hunting expedition to French colonial Saigon with his family in 1925. He is lured back again by his enduring fascination for the country and for Lan, a beautiful Vietnamese mandarin's daughter he could never forget. Over five haunting decades Joseph's life becomes deeply enmashed with Vietnam's turbulent, war-torn fate - until he attempts to salvage something of lasting value during the final desperate helicopter scramble to flee defeated Saigon.

In this first volume, Joseph sees harsh French colonial rulers incurring 'the hatred of a million coolies' - and sowing the seeds of later tragic warfare with America.

'The ringing irony of SAIGON is that a major work of fiction was required to adequately explain the fundamental tragedy of the United States involvement in Vietnam... This is a novel of terrible importance.'  Kansas City Star

'An absorbing saga, an epic novel... Anthony Grey is not just a man of steely courage as his survival of two years as a hostage in Peking demonstrated; he is one of that rare species - a born storyteller.'  John Dickie, Daily Mail, London

'One of the most memorable love stories of our time.'  West Coast Review of Books