An interesting read hard work at times. Good research, but often hard work and lacking in interest. A great read for those who love true crime.

Although the topics are interesting both from a historical and criminal point of view, the Newark work seems more like a collection of events rarely connected or connectable to each other. The amount of mentioned names often creates confusion and makes narrative not so easy. However, it is an educational work, placing particular emphasis such as organized crime in China / Hong Kong and India have contributed both to build than to destroy the British Empire.

This does a decent job at covering a wide sweeping aspect of British history, specifically the opium trade. I've been interested in reading about the British history surrounding the trade in opiates to China and India, and this covered a lot of facts. I was particularly taken with the chapters about Hong Kong and its development as part of the British Empire.

However, at times I did find it difficult to read. Some chapters did not flow well together, as it sometimes tried to cover too much information with too many 'characters'. If the author had perhaps focused on one aspect of organised crime within a specific time period, this would have worked better. Having said that, this was good at giving a broad introduction to the topic, and piqued an interest in further reading.