China Bride (Hardcover)

An all-American woman in opulent Hong Kong is swept up in a deadly conflict of Eastern and Western cultures

Hong Kong ... where the new meets the old and the West meets the East. It is the most prosperous, modern metropolis in the world, a city besieged by skyscrapers and Rolls Royces. Yet underneath this luxurious facade, invisible to the Western eye, the ancient Eastern philosophies still thrive. In the underbelly of China, appearance is everything, and money crosses all political, moral, and sexual boundaries.

Beth Connor, Harvard student and former Olympic runner, travels to Hong Kong to meet her fiance's ultra-wealthy, ultra-traditional Chinese parents. When the young couple are kidnapped by murderous thugs and held for an exorbitant ransom, Beth makes a daring escape. Shockingly, kidnapping is commonplace in decadent Hong Kong, where billionaire families normally keep quiet and pay up. But Beth, a Westerner, doesn't believe in silence. The Chang family refuses to acknowledge her, and the Chinese officials refuse to believe her. She has no choice but to take matters into her own hands, by challenging the Mafia-like Triads who brutally and ruthlessly govern the seedy Hong Kong underworld.

"The first major stories I broke were during World War Two when I covered Chou En-lai and other of Mao Tse-Tung's officers. Since then I've covered that area of the world extensively, and i think China Bride is the best novel I've ever read about China. Gripping and authentic, it is a riveting pulse-pounding thriller, as well as an unusually informative book". -- Jack Anderson