Love, like a sand mandala's beauty, has to fade. Or does it? Jamie Davidson's about to find out as he takes the Cotton Road out of Manchester and joins the Silk Road into China in search of a woman he met in Guanzhou, the enigmatic, Autumn. In an exotic journey across the mountains of Yunnan, the Water Towns of Xitang and the riot torn streets of Lhasa, Jamie realises there is a darker side to Autumn. He has become unwittingly mixed up in the Fujian underworld of Snakehead crime. Drug running, people trafficking and unbridled passion: Jamie Davidson is about to enter the dragon's mouth.Can love and the spectre of childhood promises keep him alive?