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Hong Kong |
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 Hong Kong:A Jake Grafton Novel By Stephen Coonts St. Martin’s Press ISBN 0312253397 384 pages, September 2000 Reviewed by Susan McBride With the Cold War no longer a viable plot device in adventure fiction, authors who have built their reputations and best sellers have had to turn to other geographical areas that foster the same sense of intrigue. Stephen Coonts takes his latest thriller to Hong Kong, so recently turned over to the Chinese by the British. Seems the residents of Hong Kong aren’t any too thrilled to have the communists in control of this once-proud bastion of capitalism. Just as military hero and CIA agent Jake Grafton and his wife Callie go to China, purportedly so that she might participate in a conference of Western culture, there’s a murder of a man named China Bob Chan, a figure involved in a huge campaign finance scandal in Washington. A tape exists of China Bob’s last moments and is stolen from the dead man’s office by a CIA hire named Tommy Carmellini. When Carmellini hooks up with Grafton, Jake asks his wife who speaks fluent Chinese to listen to the tape, in order to possibly uncover the murderer’s identity. At the same time as the rumble of revolution is shaking the ground underfoot, the leader of this anti-communist movement is one of the students who confronted the government tanks in Tianneman Square, Wu Tai Kwong. A rich American named Tiger Cole - and old war buddy of Jake’s - may just be bankrolling Kwong’s followers. The combination of murder and anarchy leads to danger for Jake, as Callie and Kwong are kidnapped by a member of the Asian mafia. There’s a lot going on in Hong Kong in terms of plot twists and characters. Sometimes I found myself skimming the pages when a minor character suddenly took over. The action regarding the pending strike by the revolutionaries and my curiosity on how Jake would rescue his wife kept me reading until the end. Fans of Coonts will not be disappointed. |
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