SINGAPORE, FEBRUARY 1942

A tortured howl lanced Reiko’s ear, and she gasped, her heart choking. Outrage surged through her when she spotted them. She took a metal-tipped bamboo bolt, set it on her bow grip with its nook on the bowstring, and drew back, straining against the tension, sensing its power. Her fingers loosened….

The British Empire’s Gibraltar of the Eastalters into an Asian possession. The lauded ‘impregnable fortress’ is no more.

Lord Montague Bythesea III - nobleman, nonconformist, thinker - is a DCI in the Straits Settlements Police. Bred in the land of the Rising Sun, he becomes, by an irony of fate, a fresh captive of Emperor Hirohito. A POW at Changi.

As the occupation dawns, the regime summons the imprisoned sleuth to probe the suicide of a samurai’s heir. Was it seppuku,a rite to restore honour abiding by Bushidō, their moral code? Or a heinous crime?

Circumstances propel him into the enigma, and for aiding the enemy, he risks execution by the Crown for treason. Yet, it’s a chase he feels he must undertake.

During his controversial inquiry, he treads a path through the murky realm of veiled political sects, spies, and Yakuza thugs, as his past in Tokyo catches up with him. It turns more lethal and the body count spikes.

Meanwhile, Reiko, his gorgeous adopted Japanese daughter and gifted kyūdōka, is overcome with guilt. The suffering caused by her native country sickens her, and the Kempeitai accuses her of spitting at the Chrysanthemum Throne. They threaten her.

Split by an age gap, their kinship endures as soulfully close ‘siblings’, not as parent-and-child. Then, his feelings for her shift. It flummoxes him at first. But his quest, marked by kisses with mortality, pushes him into making a life-altering choice.

Will revealing his yen fracture their affinity?

If he survives his hunt for the truth.

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A mystery spy fiction and tale of intrigue with an age-gap forbidden romance. This historical fiction about Japan and Asia covers true World War 2 and Meiji-era events, besides Japanese heritage. It trails clues to a thrilling end.

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