A romantic thriller set in Asia, In the Southern Cross dares to expose the lurid underside of traditional Chinese culture — where love and offshore dealings mix all too easily, where honesty and ambition lead straight to danger.

Headstrong maritime investigator Zack Townsend arrives in Singapore — his first trip to Asia — to track down a stolen cargo of microchips. But secretly, he has come to find Claire, an irresistible Eurasian woman who inexplicably vanished after a whirlwind romance in Baltimore.

Bursting with bull-in-a-china-shop clarity, already chafing at the shackles the local culture has put on his investigation and certain that it is the port police who are the thieves — Zack finds his Malaysian helper murdered! Staggered, but confident in his own resourcefulness, he ‘disappears’ a ship to outwit these adversaries — just what the real smugglers, including his new boss Salvia, intended. [more…]