The Red Pole of Macau
SynopsisPlot
In Ian Hamilton's The Red Pole of Macau, family ties are stressed to the limit when intrepid forensic accountant Ava Lee must rescue her half brother, Michael, and his business partner, Simon, from a disastrous multimillion-dollar real-estate deal in Macau. When the developers turn out to be gangsters, Michael and Simon are threatened with bankruptcy and much worse. Ava struggles to salvage the deal and her family's money, but then Simon is kidnapped, and the rules of the game abruptly change. Determined to keep her mentor, Uncle, out of the affair, Ava is forced to turn to a former client, the cunning and seductive May Ling Wong, for help. With time running out, Ava must use all her skills to outwit the gangsters, rescue Simon, and save her family's future.
Story
About this book
Ava Lee is a forensic accountant, a specialist trained to trace hidden money through tangled records. In The Red Pole of Macau, her professional skills are pulled into a personal crisis when her half brother Michael and his business partner Simon become trapped in a failed real-estate venture in Macau. The developers behind the deal have connections to organized crime, and what begins as a financial dispute quickly becomes something far more dangerous. Simon is kidnapped, and the stakes shift from lost money to physical survival.
Ava is determined to handle the situation without involving her mentor, Uncle, a figure with his own ties to triad society. Instead she turns to May Ling Wong, a former client with resources and sharp instincts of her own. The alliance between the two women becomes a central thread of the story as they work against armed opponents and a shrinking timeline.
Ian Hamilton sets the novel in Macau, the former Portuguese territory on the Pearl River Delta that became a Special Administrative Region of China in 1999. The city's massive casino and property development industry provides a concrete backdrop for the collision between family loyalty and criminal enterprise that drives the plot.
