A cholera epidemic breaks out in Singapore’s congested Chinatown, and Detective Hawksworth finds himself embroiled in a case that threatens to spill over into regional warfare. While the local population of recently arrived Chinese threatens to riot, someone is smuggling powerful new American weapons into the British colony, and rumours of Chinese undead wandering the night-time streets put even the powerful Chinese clans on edge. The battle for Singapore’s underworld is decided in this exciting conclusion to the trilogy.
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Detective Hawksworth travels to Malacca to meet a mysterious woman who claims his mother is alive, only to find a British Resident has been brutally murdered and a Singapore police expedition has vanished in the jungle. Children are being snatched from villages, sinister commercial syndicates are fighting over virgin resources, and a seductive vampiric pontianak is on the loose. When native kids start turning up butchered, Hawksworth finds himself increasingly isolated as the evidence points to the involvement of the colonial elite. Bringing justice to the powerful perpetrators while uncovering the secrets of his dark past pushes the detective past the brink.
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Singapore, 1892: When a dead American is found floating in Rochor Canal, Chief Detective Inspector David Hawksworth begins an investigation that quickly leads into a labyrinth of deceit and violence in the polyglot steam-cooker of Singapore. As Chinese gangs verge on open turf war and powerful commercial enterprises vie for control of the economy, a stolen statue that houses an ancient Hindu goddess becomes the object of a pursuit with a mounting body count, and its seems like everyone is suffering from demented sexual nightmares. Will Hawksworth be able to restore order before the colony is tipped into a bloodbath?