Frank Heller’s “The Secret Empress” follows Joe Wilder, a man who has turned a championship body building career into a billion-dollar health and fitness conglomerate, as he travels to China to renegotiate his supply contracts when his business faces sudden massive price increases. The Deputy Minister of Trade for Guangdong Province offers Joe an incredible deal that will guarantee his supply lines for the next ten years. As with any deal sweetheart deal, the Deputy Minister of Trade has a small request, a simple favor, in exchange. She asks him to help her 12-year-old son, Choa Li (Charley) travel to America.
This seemingly simple quid pro quo takes a horrific turn when the Deputy Minister of Trade is brutally murdered within hours of signing the new contracts. In that instant, Joe Wilder becomes the prime suspect in her murder and the sole guardian of a 12-year-old boy. The CIA station chief at the American Embassy in Beijing tells Joe that it will take four days to set up an escape route to get the two of them out of the country. The bad news is that he and Charley are being hunted by the oldest and most powerful criminal gang in China – the Bai Lang. Joe Wilder must draw upon the almost forgotten skills of his youth as a secret CIA field agent to evade the countless drug dealers, thugs and petty criminals – allies of the Bai Lang. In a race across the country, Joe and Charley must stay alive for the next four days and get to Shanghai in time to make their escape!
Spy thriller fans will be in for a treat with “The Secret Empress”. It is the riveting story of an American entrepreneur who must tap into his past as a CIA in order to save the life of an innocent child and honor the last request of a Chinese official.
About the Author
Frank Heller has written and published biographical and exhibition catalogs on American and European artists, some of which are housed in the Smithsonian Institution libraries in Washington, D.C. He served in the US Navy as a hospital corpsman during the Viet Nam War. For “The Secret Empress” he drew upon his more than 30 years of experience in the import business traveling to and working in China.
