Yoshiwara, the centuries-old pleasure quarter in Tokyo, is the backdrop for a story set in Japan on the eve of the Second World War, where an American journalist, recruited by the Office of Naval Intelligence becomes entangled in a web of espionage and murder that includes, a woman sold to a bordello in Yoshiwara, who falls in love with the journalist, a female serial killer, who stalks and kills patrons of Yoshiwara, a husband and wife, members of Japan's outcast society, the Burakumin, who agree to work for ONI in exchange for safe passage out of Japan, and an officer in the Japanese secret police, the Kempei Tai, who suspects that the journalist and the Burakumin couple are spies.