THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN…
Depth Charge, the new thriller in the Caine: Rapid Fire series, is launching soon! In my latest collaboration with author Aiden Bailey, we had a blast taking Thomas Caine to more international locations than in any of our previous books.
While a standalone story, Depth Charge is set a short time after the events of Sandfire. Many of the characters introduced in other books in the Thomas Caine series are also brought together here for the first time.
What has been particularly exciting about this book is most of the locations have been places either Aiden or I have visited. I drew on my travels in the United States, China, Colombia and Indonesia, while Aiden drew on his experiences in Bolivia, Peru, Hawaii and Indonesia. We’ve peppered the story with scenes and sights we experienced first hand.
Formerly a British colony, Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China located just across the bay from Macau. This vibrant, densely populated and modern city is where Caine escapes after a close brush with death against the MSS.
Hong Kong is often considered the center of espionage because of its unique legal and immigration system. No visa is required for travelers from more than one hundred countries to enter Hong Kong, and unlike mainland China, there is no laws in Hong Kong that define espionage as a crime.
Caine meets up with CIA Case Officer Rebecca Freeling, and the two might have just discovered that six months of secret operations against China might just have been blown wide open.
Baltimore is an important coastal city of America and located 60km northeast of Washington DC. Due to the city’s proximity to the Federal Government and the CIA headquarters, Caine has made Baltimore his home. In Depth Charge, for the first time we get to see Caine in a domestic setting, cooking a meal for the special someone in his life in his minimalist apartment. Of course, the evening doesn’t turn out how Caine expects it to…
Caine and Tyler take a quick trip across South America, via a small plane piloted over the Amazon rain forest. Covering an area of 5.5 million square kilometers, the Amazon is the largest rain forest in the world and renowned for its biodiversity. Caine and Tyler spend the night in an isolated airfield in the heart of the Peruvian jungles, sharing a bungalow with thousands of insets and a python.
West Virginia is famous for its beautiful pine forests and rugged mountainous terrain. The isolated nature of the state, despite its close proximity to Washington DC and the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, make it an ideal location for remote safe houses.
In Depth Charge, one such heavily secured safe houses becomes home to a Chinese defector. It is not long before the defector feels isolated, and realizes she might have just be in over her head. Rebecca Freeling has a tough job convincing the uneasy young woman that she made the right decision.
The largest and remotest region in China, Xinjiang is located in the far west of the country. The landscape consists of rugged mountain ranges, sandy deserts and vast grasslands. It is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Uyghur people who are being oppressed by the ruling Community Party, and incarcerated Chinese in ‘re-education’ camps appearing across the region.
Separatist conflicts and radical Islamic groups have plagued the region in recent years, as has terrorist attacks and clashes between the separatist and government forces.
Into the tumultuous environment, Rebecca and Tyler illegally enter Xinjiang on a rescue mission, but soon find themselves betrayed and incarcerated by the Chinese authorities.
Singapore is a modern island nation in South East Asia on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It is a technological, logistics, entertainment, tourism, shipping and finance hub and a global leader in so many aspects of modern life. The cultural diversity and security of the nation make Singapore, like Hong Kong, an ideal hub for international operatives like Caine.
Caine reunites with Rebecca and Tyler in Singapore after their grueling adventures through Asia and South America. But the dynamics of their relationships have changed, and not everything is as it seems…
These are only half the amazing locations we visited in Depth Charge! At nine countries and three continents in one book, we realized this is a new record in frequent flyer mileage for Caine.
Have you read the other exciting book in the Caine: Rapid Fire series?
Depth Charge launches Dec 11th, at all your favorite online ebook vendors.