I am always on the lookout for new fiction set in Southeast Asia. I came across this novel by author Bruce Cook who trained as a physicist and first worked in aerospace on the Apollo Project. He also has authored thirty screenplays and had half a dozen turned into films. How did he come to set a novel in the Philippines. He has been interviewed on this point, “I teach film making in a college where half of the students are attending on foreign visas. I always have some Filipino students. I'd talk with them about events back home. Because I had enjoyed working in the Philippines so much and because I found the Filipino people so friendly and warm.”
In the mid-1990s Cook has spent time in the Philippines working as a consultant for ABS/CBN. his research from that time was used for this novel. The amazon reviewers praise the novel. The premise of the book has an echo of Black Rain. American cop and Asian cop teaming up on the Asian landscape to fight multiple foes.
Amazon describes the book, “Harv Tucker, good old boy from Oklahoma, sells primo roosters in Manila, the world’s cockfighting capital. With his profits he buys Chinese AK-47’s, then sells them to paramilitary groups. When his body turns up behind one of Manila’s notorious sex clubs, the ensuing homicide investigation becomes international. Sam Haine, decorated ATF agent, teams up with a world-weary Filipino detective, Bogie Lorenzano. Though Sam is a fish out of water in the Philippines, and Bogie doesn’t care if Sam goes belly up, the two cops share a strong sense of justice. Many players vie for the container-load of guns, and traffic sex-slaves, buy indentured workers, sell industrial secrets, and arrange kidnappings for ransom. It’s all just business. Then Sam discovers that US intelligence may be involved with competing rebel groups and Bogie finds that his ex-lover is deeply involved in the crime syndicates, and the action heats up.”
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