The message was frustratingly vague: a warning of an imminent jihadi threat to the United States. No other information would be forthcoming; you can't interrogate a dead man, even if he was illegally providing US visas to Chinese citizens.
San Francisco homicide detective Quincy McNeil is dispatched to China to investigate the nature of the threat. There McNeil liaises with Chinese security police officer Li Yao, an intelligent, alluring woman almost twenty years his junior.
The warning, McNeil discovers, is accurate. Masterminded by the notorious and elusive Abu Sharq, the plan revolves around human smuggling, suicide bombers, and a massive counterfeiting scheme using virtually undetectable fake currency provided by North Korea-and the former head of the US Mint's banknote unit.
McNeil's hunt will take him from the US consulate in Guangzhou to the high-rolling casinos of Macau and Turpan's millennia-old underground canals. Against him stand Sharq and his allies, as well as a power-hungry Chinese politician and a Uighur imam whose hatred of the West is equaled only by his hatred for the Chinese.
It's a dicey predicament, made more complicated by McNeil's growing attraction to Li Yao. Now is not the time for distractions-even beautiful ones.
About the Author: Saul Maskell was born in Britain and earned a bachelor of arts in government from Exeter University. He taught political science at the post-secondary level, published award-winning military simulations, published and edited a military history magazine, and worked for British intelligence.
Maskell has designed and published award-winning military simulations and for a time was involved in the publication of several magazines, including Strategy & Tactics and North & South, one of the premier Civil War publications. Maskell himself has a deep admiration for Abraham Lincoln and named one of his three sons after Ulysses S. Grant.
The inspiration for Sharq came when Maskell was offered an illegal opportunity to gain a US visa for his then-fiancée, a Chinese national. Maskell rejected the offer but filed the incident away for use in a book.
Maskell lives in central California and has five grown children.
