Wallis Simpson spent a year in HK and mainland China in 1924-5 - a decade before she met the British king and caused him to abdicate. In Her Lotus Year, author Paul French, tells how she fled a violent marriage in Hong Kong before journeying on to Canton, to Shanghai and to Beijing. Wallis Simpson became enraptured with China despite the war she witnessed. But amid the warlords and bandits,... did she work for the US government?