Beau Davis

City of Man Beau Davis

The novel is about a young Naval officer, posted to the Philippines for his first duty station in 1977. He is under a political black cloud for some questionable episodes his last year at the Academy. He is resigned to just do his job during his service commitment, and focus instead on his life after the Navy. He is assigned the position of US Embassy and Philippine Ministry liaison for the naval bases which will have him working in Manila at least two days a week. His civic activities brings him to the attention of a sinister group operating in Manila, the Chinese Tongs. The Tongs, operating at the behest of the Chinese government, are working to smuggle Chinese operatives out of the Philippines, masquerading as Vietnamese nationals, to the West Coast of the United States and ultimately Silicon Valley. Their design is to steal the technology behind computer chips from an industry in its infancy. The Tongs have managed to steal the plans for or to reverse engineer a visa machine, making it difficult for US authorities to spot the fakes. The young officer has caught the eye of the female leader of the tongs, and he endeavors to use that relationship to find out the location of the visa machine. What follows is a harrowing, sensuous path leading to a raid on the location of the visa machine.