Martin, John (Emeritus Reader University of Oxford UK)

Lost Source Martin, John (Emeritus Reader University of Oxford UK)

Globalization may be knitting the world together, but it's tearing at the fabric of American society. The United States and China are locked in an epic struggle--one trying to hold on to what it has, the other trying to seize it for their own. Complicating this brawl is the cyber age, where intellectual property theft has led to massive technology robbery.

In LOST SOURCE, a strike by an American union against outsourcing leads to the discovery of a knockoff ring run by the Chinese army. The plot turns on the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs in the U. S., Chinese counterfeiting with links to al?Qaeda, and the challenge and instability of a China racked by a secessionist plot and mass protests.

As the story opens, the two economic superpowers are veering toward a trade war when the union leader is murdered. John Shay, at a stale point in his marriage and at work, takes over the strike, along with Hannah Stein, who is battling her own issues--a stormy bond with her father, bad relationship choices, symptoms of young-onset Parkinson's.

Hannah and John quickly realize the strike is a piece on a larger game board. Aided by Chinese democracy activists and a Native American woman working in Asia to combat digital piracy, they stumble into a thicket of intrigue, as unrest spills into the streets of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States.

In this topical thriller, Hannah and John are snared in a geopolitical drama and fighting for their lives--just when they begin to grasp the meaning of those lives--as a U. S. carrier strike force steams toward the Taiwan Strait, two heavyweight nations on the brink of war.