A travel-worn soldier of forturne, Harry Kincaid was no stranger to exotic ports of call. He had negotiated the drawing rooms of Victorian London, the opium dens of shanghai, the wild saloons of the Mississippi, and more. But nothing in his odd career had prepared him for the splendor and decadence of Manaus. In the late 1800's this sixth-richest city in world glitters like a jewel set deep in the deadliest jungle known to man. Though situated in an equatorial wilderness. 1,000 mile upriver on the Amazon, Manaus boasts electric lights, trams resplendent mansions, cobblestone streets, a lighthouse shipped brick by brick fro England, prostitutes with diamond filling in their teeth, and an opera house that rivals La Scala. The leading citizens are billionaires vy virtue of the total monopoly they hold on the world's single source of rubber.