What would have happened if Hitler had been a little more lucky? What would life have been like in the UK under German occupation? Especially, what would have happened to the more attractive of the women? Most of the action takes place in 1947. Germany won the war. Belgium, France, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Spain are all part of Greater Germany and are effectively provinces. The UK is still occupied by the German army.
Fourteen-year-old Stephan swims like a fish and looks like a Michelangelo statue as he plays in the sea off the Lido di Venezia beach in Venice in 1924. As he stretches and dries off on the sand, he is ogled by expatriate American banker Jeremy Biddle, German doctor Reinhard Gleason, English patrician Sir Clarence Hailley, and French priest Father Franz. Each of the men aches in want for the boy and each of them has him--but at a price.
At fourteen, handsome, sunny, blue-eyed, and handful Ron is very much ahead of his times. He has already dabbled in trouble most don't contemplate before getting out of their teens, and he even has gotten familiar with alcohol. He is shipped off to an uncle in Singapore, but he hasn't finished learning life ahead of his time yet. In Singapore he finds his way to the House of Perfect Bliss and its procurer, Jun Lee.