The final decade of the second millennium approaches. Japan is at the peak of its post-war renaissance. Prosperous. Dynamic. Confident. Tokyo, the booming capital, glitters and swaggers in the international spotlight. But roiling in the shadows of the dazzling new buildings is a volatile mixture of greed, corruption and tension between old ways of thinking and new ways of living.
In the midst of it all, two people straddle the divide: high-powered investment analyst Gina Knight and her ex-lover, British-educated Tokyo Metropolitan Police Superintendent Kei Shimizu. Both are strong-minded, cosmopolitan, passionate, yet their relationship is beset with difficulties. Thrown together by crime, threatened by long-standing feuds, they struggle to survive a society in ferment and their own turbulent romance.
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In Ikumo, Gina is forced to enlist Kei's help when her closest friend and colleague - elegant, elusive Yuki Akashi - disappears. Was Yuki kidnapped by the playboy with dubious connections and an eye on her inheritance? Driven away by a traditionalist brother-in-law determined to preserve family honour? Or murdered in a jealous rage by her English stockbroker boyfriend?
As they uncover secret after grisly secret, Gina and Kei are drawn ever closer. But can their renewed love survive the vortex of greed, jealousy, betrayal and revenge that engulfs them?
(available for publication - approximately 109,000 words)
At almost 40, Kei wants to settle down to a peaceful life with his American fiancée, Gina Knight, and the child they are expecting. But first he has things to do: wring a divorce from his long-estranged wife, Kyoko; catch whoever is vandalising his historic home; and uncover the truth behind the deaths of his liberal activist parents twenty years earlier.
Both Gina and his police superiors insist that Kei's duty is to the future, not the past. But with new information at hand and Gina working abroad, Kei sets about rattling cages. Help appears to come in the unlikely form of Shinji Maeda, a smooth-talking Justice Ministry official who claims to have known Kei's parents. As Maeda casts doubt on all Kei's certainties, however, witnesses start dying. Then Gina and Kyoko are caught in the crossfire, driving Kei to a fatal confrontation.
(in progress)
Japan's financial bubble begins to deflate, exposing the excesses of the boom years. Among the worst of these is the rapid growth in human trafficking for Japan's voracious sex trade. And one of the many women tricked into going to Tokyo to work as an 'entertainer' is the sister of the Filipina nurse caring for Kei's ailing grandfather.
Gina follows a trail that leads to a model agency fronted by Kei's childhood friend, revolutionary-turned-supermodel Naomi Peet. When Gina becomes the only suspect in Naomi's murder, Kei, now suspended from the police, is forced to delve alone into this dark and dangerous world.
(planned)
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© 2010 Elizabeth Saccente. All rights reserved |
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