It was a scandal that provoked shock and disbelief - and inspired a long-running Broadway play. But the convicted spy at the center of the storm never told his side of the story...until now. When Bernard Boursicot, an innocent and charming twenty-year-old yearning for adventure and romance, was posted to the French embassy in Beijing, he met and soon fell in love with a mysterious, seductive opera singer named Shi Pei Pu. Over the course of the next eighteen years, the two lived out a passionate and dangerous liaison that produced a son, drew them into espionage, and ultimately landed them both in a French prison. The whole time, Boursicot was unaware that Pei Pu, the love of his life and his longtime sexual partner, was a man. How could this happen? How could he not know? These questions intrigued the world, making Boursicot the subject of incredulity and ridicule, and ultimately inspired an immensely popular Broadway hit, M Butterfly. But the speculation could not begin to rival the astonishing real story. To uncover the facts behind this sensational case, journalist Joyce Wadler spent three years researching court documents and psychiatrists' files, interviewing relatives, friends, and co-workers of the pair, including a former prime minister of France. Most important of all, she persuaded Boursicot, who had refused to discuss his story since his arrest, to break his silence. For the first time Ms. Wadler explains - in explicit detail - exactly how the tantalizing creature described in international headlines as "the Chinese Mata Hari" was able to deceive Boursicot while playing the greatest role of her...his?...life. Even richer and more compelling than the fiction it inspired, Liaison is a true story of the inseparability of love and illusion.