The Hardtack Diary

A man will do many things for the woman he loves

Navy Captain Richard Wilson is back on familiar ground with his new thriller, The Hardtack Diary. Featuring a main character who is based at a major university, but is also working in Naval Intelligence, as Richard himself did, this is the first book in a new series to feature the memorable new character, Hardtack.

Risk, mystery and erotic excitement swirl across the Pacific and into the depths of China against a backdrop of fears about weapons of mass destruction and China's rise as a world power. "I wanted to write about China and the Chinese," says Richard, a China expert, "but do so as an action-packed thriller." The love story that unfolds is a great page-turning read involving a colorful cast of villains and heroes, the shady and the virtuous.

The story builds to a climax in the sordid brothels of Taipei, and features a large amount of adventure and romance with exotic settings along the way.

Synopsis:

A mysterious man requests a private meeting with Hardington Tachman, university professor and naval intelligence officer. The visitor weaves a tale of intrigue that propels Hardtack, as he is better known, across the Pacific from Mexico to China, in pursuit of a missing weapon of mass destruction. On the journey Hardtack falls in love with Mei Li, an exotic young Chinese-American who is kidnapped in Hong Kong and disappears into the clutches of the Chinese mafia. Hardtack tracks her across China, while becoming ensnared in a plot to entangle the US in a war with China.