Ellie McEnroe

Iraq vet Ellie McEnroe, injured in combat and recently divorced, is lying low in Beijing. After two years living in China on a semi-expired visa, she's acquired decent language skills, a sometimes boyfriend, and the hope that someday she can forget what she saw in battle-horrors that haunt her every time she closes her eyes. She's a stranger in a strange land, her wounded leg is killing her, and her neighbor keeps threatening to report her to the Public Security Bureau, but she's hanging in there. For now. Then a chance connection with an Uighur man-a Chinese Muslim minority-plunges her into a world of mysterious government operatives, art dealers, and a dark organization operating in the shadows of a popular online game. When her lover-the artist Lao Zhang-disappears, Ellie needs to figure out who she can trust, and fast. Because the trauma of her past may pale in comparison to the danger she now faces. This taut, gritty thriller brings the complexities of modern urban China visceral life.