“Ali’s Portal” is very different from the usual fare of exciting suspense novels by Saylor Storm.  Instead, readers are treated to a superb character-driven narrative of a life that is not everything it seems.  Ali has a sales job where she frequently conducts business in China.  As such she frequently flies out an air terminal waiting for connecting flights.  As “Ali’s Portal” opens she waits in a bar at an airport where she begins a friendship with a bartender who makes a special drink that e...