An ex-marine on the run for his life brawls his way across post–World War II China in this rip-roaring adventure story That summer they hanged a fat man at the Western gate as a warning and example to all. Kao was a traitor, a thief, a pimp, a black marketeer-and Jake Dodds's partner. So what if he traded stolen military supplies with the Japanese, Jake wants to know. He never cheated me. But 1947 Peking is a savage, cutthroat city, and the United States Marine Corps sergeant is too busy saving his own skin to put up a fight over Kao's fate. Jake served his country with honor in World War II, but when he knocks an American brigadier general through a barroom window, no amount of battlefield scars or combat medals will save him from prison. So he sets out across the Gobi Desert with a caravan of Kao's illicit goods-and plunges into a world of violence and treachery that will take every ounce of his strength and intelligence to survive. Pursued by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army and a bandit chieftain named Tiger's Assistant Demon, Jake disappears into the mountains-but the chaos of postwar China is inescapable, and "peace" has never been a part of this two-fisted adventurer's vocabulary. The Chinese Bandit is the 1st book in the Far East Trilogy, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
"Few Western novelists have written about China. Fewer still have done it well. . . . With The Chinese Bandit, Stephen Becker joins this small list. . . . An action novel, a cop-suey western, of great merit. The narrative is as terse and suggestive as a scroll painting."
The New York Times Book Review
"There are writers you have to love from the very first line. Stephen Becker did that for me when I opened up The Chinese Bandit. I was standing up when I picked up that book, but before I got to the end of the paragraph, I sat down and read till dinner. Is there a better testimonial for a novelist?"
Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever War
"Becker's most exciting novel. He creates an atmosphere as convincing as his plot is compelling . . . will keep readers turning pages through the night."
