Live on Kickstarter:
Tiger Blues
My seventh novel, Tiger Blues, is live now on Kickstarter!
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I have always loved history, and somewhere along the line, I learned who my main characters were. Olive Yang, the Burmese drug kingpin, chased their brother's girlfriends, dated the hottest actress in Burma, seduced a prison warden while doing time, spied for the CIA, smuggled soap laced with itching powder to the communists, and was instrumental in ending a decades old violent conflict. Kawashima Yoshiko spied for the Japanese, commanded an army of 3,000 men, went out to cabarets every night, tipping the dancers with a huge wad of cash, is alleged to have escaped a loveless marriage by riding a white steed through the desert while dressed in scarlet, and may have had connections to the nefarious Black Dragon Society. Both of these individuals were assigned female at birth, both crossdressed as men, both pursued queer relationships, and both may have been genderqueer, nonbinary, or trans. Although, in real life, they never met each other, it seemed perfect to pair them together on a dangerous job – one plucky crew of mercenaries going after the ultimate score. And what is that score? That would be the Tiger's Penis, a mystical Buddhist amulet, endowed with the power of emptiness by the great Guru Padmasambhava in the 9th century, which has recently been uncovered in the Tibetan peaks. It's the tail end of the Chinese civil war, and a troupe of Maoist zealots have heard tale of this doomsday weapon, which they believe can break and flatten the minds of men – something the communists would definitely love to get their hands on – but is it a weapon of mass destruction, or something more?
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Meet Olive Yang
Drug kingpin, gunslinger, playboy, and CIA asset.
They pioneered opium trafficking in the Golden Triangle, dated the hottest actress in Burma, smuggled soap laced with itching powder to the communists, and once seduced the warden of a prison while doing time.
They also may have been trans, genderqueer or nonbinary.
Meet Kawashima Yoshiko
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Princess, spy, and commander of an anti-banditry brigade.
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They honeypotted for Japanese spymasters before World War 2, and may have been agent provocateur for the Black Dragon Society.
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They also may have been trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary. Both Olive and Yoshiko were well-known for crossdressing as men.
Meet the Pink Platoon
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A troupe of Maoist zealots tasked to venture to the Roof of the World and seize the Tiger's Penis for the glory of the Revolution. Comrade Xie is uppity and disgruntled, once the target of a CIA op at a Thai sex club.
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Comrade Dai is shy and unsure, a former blackjack dealer and might just have a thing for a silver-tongued rogue in menswear.
Meet Olive's Boys
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A plucky crew consisting of rogues and oddjobs, Olive Yang built their own crew that was renowned throughout northern Burma. Roger Banana is an American pilot with a penchant for bourbon. Duan Lu is Olive's brother-in-law, dropout from a Buddhist monastery and eager to make his mark.
Book synopsis:
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In the ninth century, renowned Buddhist guru Padmasambhava is said to have ridden a winged tiger to a treacherous cliffside cave, ten thousand feet above sea level, in the Paro Valley of Bhutan. There, he reached the pinnacle of Enlightenment, and left behind a legendary amulet with the power of the gods. This talisman is known to history as the Tiger’s Penis.
1948: Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces are on the run. Chairman Mao is wrapping his commie fingers around all of China, and his partisans have heard rumours of the fabled Tiger’s Penis, with the power to control and break the minds of men, having been unearthed in the Himalayan peaks. Chiang doesn’t have the forces to snatch this idol up and keep it from the communists. It comes down to one plucky crew of mercenaries to venture high into the mountains and find this mythical amulet...
Olive Yang was born a Burmese noblewoman. Kawashima Yoshiko was born a Manchurian princess. Now Olive is a gun-runner and smuggler, fresh off a breakup and looking for solace at the bottom of a bottle. Yoshiko is a Japanese war criminal and fugitive having paid off the executioner to fake the hanging. Both are strident and audacious, kicking ass and taking names – Olive with a laser-dagger bolted to a prosthetic arm and Yoshiko with a résumé of seducing and honeypotting targets on behalf of Japanese spymaster handlers. And both reject the genders expected of them, crossdressing and living Bohemian lifestyles with a retinue of girlfriends they each sometimes call their ‘wives’. Down on their luck and stuck in the mountain city of Kunming, they're offered a paying job from one of Chiang's loyalists looking to prevent communist disaster...​