Following the Sea of Poppies (2008) and River of Smoke (2011), the novel is the final installment of the Ibis trilogy, which concerns the 19th-century opium trade between India and China.

Shireen Modi, an Indian Parsi woman, has left for China in search of her late husband's illegitimate child.

Neel has now absconded and remains a fugitive in order to avoid being jailed for his conviction on the false forgery charges, which Mr. Burnham had manipulated.

[2] Along with English, the characters in the book converse in other languages like Bengali, Cantonese, and Gujarati, and make use of the ornate dialect and the colloquial sailor terminology.

[10][11][12] Simar Bhasin of Hindustan Times appreciated "Ghosh's play with language" and mentioned that "the research done by the author and its consequent treatment is close to flawless".

[13] South China Morning Post gave the novel five out of five stars, saying "few writers have combined popular and literary styles in a Hong Kong-set book better than Amitav Ghosh".

[14] Mark Thomas of The Sydney Morning Herald reviewed the book as "an exceptionally well-read novel" and noted that Ghosh has kept the fortunes of characters as a mystery.

[15] Wendy Smith of the Los Angeles Times also noted that Ghosh did not wrap up the trilogy, "leaving in transition many people to whom we have grown attached over the course of three novels".