''Intensely readable and exciting'' Sunday TelegraphSet in the turbulent days of the founding of Hong Kong in the 1840s, Tai-Pan is the story of Dirk Struan, the ruler - the Tai-Pan - of the most powerful trading company in the Far East. He is also a pirate, an opium smuggler, and a master manipulator of men. This is the story of his fight to establish himself and his dynasty as the undisputed masters of the Orient.''Packed with action . . . gaudy and flamboyant with blood and sin, treachery and conspiracy, sex and murder . . . grand entertainment'' New York Times