The King of Macau

THE BIGGEST GAMBLING TOWN ON EARTH,
A BEAUTIFUL BILLIONAIRESS IN DEEP TROUBLE,
AND THE HOTTEST POLITICAL DEFECTOR IN HISTORY.
EVERYBODY IS YELLING FOR JACK SHEPHERD'S HELP.
Jack Shepherd is a lawyer, but he doesn't much like to admit it. He's fled the acrid life of Washington and now he works by himself in Hong Kong. He no longer lobbies government agencies, negotiates for corporations, or shows up in court. From his little unmarked office on Hollywood Road, he works quietly to solve the problems his big-money clients don't want anyone to know they have.
One of the world's largest casino operators discovers a massive money-laundering scheme at its casino in Macau and they hire Jack Shepherd to get it stopped. A tiny place on the south coast of China near Hong Kong, Macau is the biggest gambling center on earth. It is also a stronghold of Chinese organized crime, which makes it a dicey place for a white guy to go around asking questions.
Shepherd is in Macau ducking Chinese gangsters and searching for the source of the black money swamping the casinos when he is sucked into another bizarre caper. A man who knows the secret schemes of the North Korean government has found out Shepherd still has high-level connections in Washington. He wants Shepherd to slip him out of Macau and get him political asylum in America, maybe with a nice beach house in Hawaii thrown in for good measure.
And just like that Shepherd finds himself tumbling headlong through this modern-day Casablanca on the South China Sea, a bubbling cauldron of gunrunners, money launderers, hustlers, gangsters, gamblers, con men, and spies. To stay ahead of the Chinese gangsters and shut down the black money flow, he joins forces with the daughter of a shadowy old man everybody calls the King of Macau while at the same time he's battling a gaggle of North Korean hitmen to bring his defector in alive.
Move too fast, and he'll lose control of everything. Move too slow... and Macau just might kill him.
"JAKE NEEDHAM IS ONE OF OUR FINEST AUTHORS OF THRILLERS" - Robert Kidera, Tony Hillerman Award winning author of the Gabe McKenna Mysteries