The 18th-century Straits is in crisis, beleaguered by the Dutch, the Bugis, and the clash between Siam and Burma. Francis Light, devious manipulator of the status quo, is joined by a cast of real historical figures from the courts of Siam and Kedah and from the East India Company, including Sultan Muhammed Jiwa, King Tak Sin, Warren Hastings and Martinha Rozells, a young Eurasian woman of noble birth. 

From humble origins in Suffolk, England, Light struggles against the social prejudices of his day. His subsequent adventures as a naval officer and country sea captain take him from India to Sumatra, the Straits of Malacca to Siam, through shipwreck, sea battles, pirate raids and tropical disease. But Light's most difficult challenge is achieving his ultimate dream: to establish a British port in the Indies on behalf of the East India Company.

Dragon, the first of a series of three historical fiction books on Francis Light titled the Penang Chronicles, charts Light's colourful adventures in the decades before the settlement of Penang Island, the Honourable Company's first possession on the Malay Peninsula.