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.