The Chinese Bandit

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.