THE EMBROIDERED CITY

The story of a precarious political-philanthropic mission to bring flour to the famine-bound city of Tai-lun, this is informed in its knowledge of China, aware and disabused in its personal portraiture. On the UNRAA relief ship sent to Tai-lun are Stegler, a self made success in the grocery business whose formula for the salvation of China is limited to refrigeration; Diane Hadley, whose naive idealism is genuinely motivated by a crusading spirit; and Peter Corey, in the Consular Service, sent out there to reopen the consulate. Peter who alone recognises the many concealed, conflicting issues, the threat of Communism, the personal profits of Banker Sun whose hoarded rice could save the starving city, the impotence of gentle, benevolent Mayor Wai. And Corey, although he has himself lost all personal illusion, still throws his weight behind Diane's mission for her sake, sees that the flour is distributed in the face of gunfire which is to end Diane's life... An intelligent integration of international pressures and individual aspirations, there's restraint here and more than a little irony.