Blue Dragon Spring (Hong Kong China mystery espionage and crime novels)

"Jan Pearson is Hong Kong’s top thriller writer in English. Her thrillers Red Bird Summer (2014), Tiger Autumn (2015) and Black Tortoise Winter (2016) are classics of the genre. Heart-racing puzzleboxes bursting with Triads, high financiers and fraught Anglo-Sino political relations."Blue Dragon Spring is both current and nostalgic. Hard-boiled and cynical, and yet still glamorous and dazzling. It’s a fitting finale to the Four Directions, and a hell of a page-turner." —Joe Darlington, Manchester Review of BooksHong Kong enters 1980 in a restless mood. As China’s doors open to foreign investment, Hong Kong’s manufacturing base declines and the number of illegal immigrants continues to grow. Britain’s lease of the Hong Kong New Territories will expire on 30 June 1997. Confidence in Hong Kong’s future is already affected by speculation about the handover to China that this may trigger. Many Hong Kong nationals depart to live overseas.In January, the illegitimate son of Hong Kong’s most powerful gangster, who is also the nephew of tycoon Yip Yee Koon, abandons his role as leader of the Wo Luen Shing Triad and returns to England where he was educated. Tony Smith’s departure unleashes family secrets which almost decimate the Yip empire. At the same time, other criminal groups in the infamous Kowloon Walled City use his exit to seize power. A month or so later, Pearl Green, in her role as Director of the Hong Kong-based June Bowen Foundation, is in England to attend a conference. In London’s Soho, she witnesses a worrying incident. After hearing her account, her father, London-based James Gates, links the matter to a Hong Kong source and travels out unexpectedly. On the plane, James encounters a beautiful Eurasian woman, and sees she is wearing Tony Smith’s distinctive dragon sapphire ring, worn only by the leader of the Wo Luen Shing.—Smith must be dead.— James is appalled by this overt display of power. He assigns his men on the ground in Hong Kong—Peter Benson, and Yip Yee Koon’s very flappable chauffeur, Hua Leung—to follow the woman with the blue dragon ring. What can they discover about her plans for contributing to the palpable restlessness abroad in Hong Kong in the opening months of this new decade?Hong Kong provides wonderful material for fast paced story-telling. Having lived there through the 1960s—vibrant as well as troubled times—Jan Pearson has the knack of bringing the place to life without forfeiting the touch of fantasy which she hopes will always linger in the air of the Fragrant Harbour. Jan is an Australian writer, with a lifelong passion for Asia, traveling to Hong Kong, Thailand and Laos most years. She has recently moved from Cairns in far north Queensland to the New South Wales Central Coast to be closer to family in these challenging times. Blue Dragon Spring is Jan’s fourth novel in the Celestial Symbols Series, a group of tightly plotted and entertaining mystery, espionage and crime novels set in Hong Kong between 1964 and 1980. From the publication of the first in the series, Jan has been invited to participate in The Davitt Awards, the premier Australian crime writers’ competition, founded by Sisters In Crime Australia in 2001.