The Nine Dragons

3.1/5 ( ratings)

Now, from the acclaimed author of The Shipkiller, comes a whirlwind novel of gripping suspense set against the teeming backdrop of the richest Chinese city in the world, a city on the brink of chaos...
As the days to Turnover race past, thirty-two-year-old Victoria Mackintosh returns to Hong Kong in a last-ditch effort to persuade her father - the taipan of Mackintosh Farquhar, the last great independent British trading company in Hong Kong - that he must diversify internationally to safeguard his company against the upcoming upheaval. But Duncan Mackintosh stubbornly refuses, and Victoria blames his decision on his adulterous infatuation with the beautiful, brilliant Chinese woman who has become his right hand in the family firm.
Convinced that Mackintosh Farquhar can survive the communist takeover unharmed, Duncan is about to cement a secret deal with a mysterious broker when his clandestine sea tryst takes a fatal turn. Suddenly Victoria is thrust into the role of taipan. Now it falls to her, the Dragon Daughter, to steer mackintosh Farquhar through the increasingly turbulent times ahead.
Armed with the dangerous secrets that got her father killed, Victoria plunges into a world of deceit and double cross. She knows that deep within Duncan's tight-knit organization a traitor lies coiled, ready to strike again - while outside Mackintosh she must struggle to stay one step ahead of the corrupt machinations of Hong Kong's richest and most ruthless businessman, Two-Way Wong, who will go to any lengths to see the great trading houses destroyed.
And then Victoria makes a mistake that could cost her everything. She falls for a man intimately connected to her greatest enemy.
For Victoria, it's a reckless high-stakes game, played for the future of Mackintosh Farquhar and of Hong Kong itself. But in these waning days of capitalism, as Hong Kong becomes a kind of exhilarating casino, she will find that she has bet her life against towering odds.
Taut, brilliantly suspenseful, and shimmering with the exoticism of the city of nine dragons, Justin Scott's novel is a magnificent tale of Hong Kong in a time of epic transition.