Singapore, February 1942

A tortured howl lanced Reiko's ear, crushing her heart. She gasped. Moments afterward, outrage surged through her when she saw them. She took a metal-tipped bamboo bolt, set it on her bow grip with its nook on the bowstring, and drew it back, straining against the tension, sensing its power. She blinked away a raindrop … and her fingers began their release…

The British Empire's Gibraltar of the East

morphs into a changed possession. An Asian one. The lauded 'impregnable fortress' is no more.

The Baron Montague Bythesea III

— nobleman, thinker, nonconformist — is a DCI in the Straits Settlements Police. Bred in the land of the Rising Sun, he becomes, by a cruel twist of fate, a fresh captive of Emperor Hirohito. A prisoner at Changi.

The occupation dawns

The regime summons the imprisoned sleuth to probe into a death. A scion of samurai. Was it seppuku, a ritual suicide?

Circumstances propel him

into the enigma — a hunt he feels honour and duty bound to pursue. In doing so, he risks being shipped to the gallows by the Crown for collaborating with the enemy.

Over the course of his controversial inquiry

he faces the shadowy world of political sects and secret societies, as his past in Tokyo catches up with him. It turns more lethal and the body count spikes.

All the while

guilt sweeps over Reiko, his Japanese foster daughter. Her native country, causing untold suffering, leaves her sickened. Shame engulfs her. Though free, the alluring nurse and kyūdōka fears their new rulers will see her status as a British subject as spitting at the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Split by an age gap

their kinship endures not as parent-and-child, but as soulfully close 'siblings' forged by tragedies. Then, his feelings for her shift. Unnoticed at first. It flummoxes him, unsure what it signifies. The life-and-death trials of his quest force him to a crossroads.

His choices stand plain

Will he suppress his innermost yearning? Or threaten their existing affinity? If he survives his hazardous truth-seeking investigation.

Spies, Yakuza thugs, and killings

along with comfort women and forbidden age gap romance, entwine in this tale of intrigue set during the dark oppression of Singapore. Imbued with S.E. Asian and Japanese cultures, it trails a web of clues to a thrilling end.

A mystery historic fiction

laced with true WW2 and Meiji-era history.