The Lord of Billionaires' Row: 138,000 words.
A page-turning thriller with a human side, The Lord of Billionaires' Row shows how powerful criminal gangs (in this case in both China and the United Kingdom) can be at risk from the fallout from even a single murder and explores the brutal lengths they will go to to try and stop this happening. The criminal gangs are "The Firm" in London and "The Faction" in China. The Chinese Communist Party essentially being an umbrella organisation for any sociopath who wants to control others, The Faction is embedded within the CCP but does not yet have full control of Party and country: something which it plans to change! The two gangs work together to achieve both mutual goals and separate ones, leading to extreme tension in the long run.
Initially, the story is seen through the eyes of Malcolm Oats, a London gangster's son who doesn't even want to start going bent and Charles Ren, a Chengdu businessman who gives Chinese people an alternative to insanely risky "property-based investment products" and who also practices meditation and formal exercise in public parks (which is very dangerous in Communist China). Intertwining conspiracies unfold and unravel in Britain, China and, in passing, Italy.
Malcolm's father, Ron, who wants to go straight but is too integral to the business of The Firm to be allowed to do so, is commissioned to steal numerous priceless Chinese artworks from museums and collections in Britain, to be used to enhance the prestige and therefore the power of The Faction in China. Ron tries to make it bearable to do a job he really isn't keen on, by being highly creative about how he undertakes the necessary robberies. This ultimately makes The Faction's contact man in London desperately paranoid about Ron -and therefore The Firm- being dangerously clever and too difficult to control, leading him to set in motion a chain of events which threatens the governments of both Britain and China.
Malcolm, meanwhile, gets entangled, (by squatting in the wrong millionaire's mansion in Virginia Water: one that belonged to Charles Ren) with a Chinese commando team in Britain to steal technological secrets connected with offshore energy resources, so that The Faction's rivals in China, those still loyal to the President and General Secretary, can improve their own prestige and strengthen their political position enough to be able to act against The Faction. He is aided by Ruth Parker, a zoologist with, as it turns out, an iron will and nerves of steel. She doesn't intend to fall in love with a 17 year old youth: Malcolm knows this, but chooses to play the long game on his older brother's kindly advice.
Democracy in Britain is threatened by all this, but in China, is there just a gleam of light inherent in the fact that the two most powerful anti-democratic forces are at each other's throats?
The E-book and paperback both conclude with a free sample chapter from the author's forthcoming novel: "The Farshoreman".
