Synopsis
1996: Hong Kong, British Crown Colony. Jewel of Asia, she is the queen of commerce, a vibrant city where the art of the deal is centuries old, where men can make fortunes in minutes and anything (or anyone) can be had for a price.
1997: Hong Kong, China. No longer a prize of British colonialism, Hong Kong will enter a new realm of history as China reclaims what she sees as her most wayward child. No one knows what this change will bring. Will this become a new era of peace and prosperity for the city, uniting the people with a common goal and vision, all working for the glory of China?
Or will this mean the destruction of Hong Kong's way of life, a withdrawal of all the liberties enjoyed by the island's residents by a mainland government that views all trade as state secrets and the press as an enemy of the People's Republic?
Change can bring joy - but more often it brings fear. Among the varied individuals confronting this historic change: Brandon Poole: One of Hong Kong's richest industrialists, he is a British aristocrat whose family helped colonize the city and whose love for it will keep him there...perhaps long past the time of safety. Lacy Locke: A New York investment banker who comes to Hong Kong to make her mark and winds up with much more than she ever bargained for. Claude Van Hooten: A Dutch businessman hungry for success, whose dreams have drawn him to this city and whose love for one woman may doom them both. Moia Hsu: A beautiful Chinese intellectual with ties to Beijing, whose love for Van Hooten and her country are tearing her apart. These four people - and all the teeming masses of this wondrous place - will face the destiny of Hong Kong together. And the question all will seek the answer to is...Will the dragon destroy its most precious treasure?
Reviews
What will happen in Hong Kong when, on July 1, 1997, after 150 years of British rule, the People's Republic of China assumes control of the Crown Colony? That's the question energizing Arnote's new novel, a stylish if evanescent financial thriller that's his first hardcover after several paperback mysteries (Evil's Fancy, etc.). Arnote explores the impending odd-couple marriage of communism and capitalism through a large cast of characters. Davy Wong, young activist hero of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, is provided refuge in the island-city from evil Gen. Liu Wing of the People's Liberation Army by world-famous mega-billionaire Brandon Poole, scion of a legendary British line of Hong Kong entrepreneurs. Elsewhere in Hong Kong, New York financial analyst Lacy Locke, who has come to Asia to survey candidate corporations for her company's Pacific Rim mutual fund, meets Dutch fashion tycoon Claude Van Hooten and his exotic assistant, the sensual Moia Hsu, whose father is in the Trade Ministry in Beijing. Moia once had an affair with Liu Wing; now her former but still jealous lover is conspiring to ruin Van Hooten's company, Phuket Color. At the same time, Poole, who's possessed of the expertise and logistical machinery to industrialize China, has plans to buy Phuket Color and also to woo the lovely Lacy away from her philandering New York TV-anchor husband. Colorful cameo characters?including a sexy rock singer, a gay male model and a corrupt police superintendent?contribute to the action, played out against the well-evoked, exotic scenery of Hong Kong. There's adventure here as well as romance, but this enjoyably lightweight entertainment fails to face squarely the heavyweight question that looms over it. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Arnote, an old paperback mystery hand, debuts in hardcover with a trashy and rather tedious tale of Hong Kong on the eve of its reversion to China. Luscious Lacy Locke, senior VP at a Wall Street investment bank where she specializes in Pacific Basin markets, decides to gauge for herself what risks (political or otherwise) might be involved in the Communist mainland's imminent takeover of the Crown Colony. Once she's in the bustling Far East city, Lacy (whose marriage to a philandering TV newscaster is near the breaking point) meets with Claude Van Hooten, an entrepreneurial Dutchman who, with more than a little help from his live-in lover Moia Hsu, has built a very successful fashion-apparel enterprise that could be taken public. The daughter of an influential government official, Beijing-born Moia has considerable clout with the Red regime, owing to her skills in economic development. She has at least one enemy as well, the unsavory Liu Wing (a general in the People's Liberation Army) who loved and lost her. From her base at the Mandarin Hotel, Lacy also renews acquaintances with Brandon Poole, a billionaire Brit whose fortune grew with Hong Kong's emergence as an Asian outpost of unfettered capitalism. In point of fact, she spends appreciably more time with Brandon on the social circuit than in taking care of her employer's business, and as the handsome hardbodies frolic together, the insanely jealous PLA commander takes it upon himself to firebomb one of Claude's factories. A take-charge kind of guy, Brandon dispatches the general and prevails upon Lacy (who gives her husband his walking papers via phone) to consider bearing him an heir, while Claude weds the pregnant Moia. At the close, all sail off aboard a comfortably appointed vessel from Brandon's fleet, hedging their bets on Hong Kong's uncertain future. Given the inane plotting and witless dialogue (``Good company and a fine breakfast have totally cured my jet lag''), many readers may ask: Where is James Clavell now that we need him? -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Intrigued by the pending transfer of Hong Kong to China next July, Arnote (False Promises, Forge, 1995) has created a cast of characters?all of them tall and exceptionally attractive, as the reader is repeatedly reminded?with particular interests in the bustling British colony. Lacy Locke, vice president of a Wall Street investment firm who is staking her reputation on recommendations for a Pacific Rim mutual fund, develops a mutual attraction for rich British industrialist Brandon Poole, who's pledged to keep his financial empire based in Hong Kong. Also staying in the Crown Colony is Claude Van Hooten, a Dutch manufacturer of high-fashion clothing, who owes much of his success as well as his happiness to Moia Hsu, whose roots and family remain in Beijing. General Liu Wing of the People's Liberation Army still pines for Moia, his former lover, while hunting for Tiananmen Square activist Davy Wong. Arnote employs stock characters and stilted dialog, ultimately falling short in establishing a sense of place; but true love triumphs between beautiful people, and for some readers that will be enough. For large popular collections.
-?Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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