Permanent Damage

by Dean Barrett

Scott Sterling, 45, is an American detective, ex-CIA Beijing and Bangkok, and now lives over one of the bars in Bangkok frequented by American vets of various wars. An American woman shows up at the bar; a woman who believes her father, a special forces team leader on highly classified missions into Laos, was murdered by a Thai woman in the early 70's, and she wishes to clear his name and bring the Thai woman to justice. Scott reluctantly takes on the case and agrees to search for the woman not knowing he is being set up. He tracks down and interviews surviving members of her father's special forces team. The special forces team members have their own reasons for stopping Scott's investigation, and once he ignores warnings from friends and strangers as well as ex-CIA colleagues, he understands the very real danger he is in. And the more he digs the more he realizes nothing is what it seems; then or now. The special forces team members are themselves being hunted by the Vietnamese sons of the man they betrayed during the war. The Vietnamese sons are also hunting for the same mysterious Thai woman who, along with the American woman's father and his team members, betrayed their father during the Vietnam War; yet she seems to have vanished. When Scott gets too close to the truth, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a decades-old vendetta, unable to trust anyone, and in the sights of a highly trained hunter-killer.

382 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

Dean Barrett first arrived in Asia as a Chinese linguist with the American Army Security Agency. While living in New York, Dean was a member of Dramatists Guild, a board member of Mystery Writers of America and a librettist/lyricist with BMI. He lived in Hong Kong for 17 years where he was managing director of Hong Kong Publishing Company Ltd. Dean has written several books on China and Thailand. His musical, Fragrant Harbour, set in 1857 Hong Kong, was selected by the National Alliance for Musical Theater to be shown to producers and directors on 42nd Street, NYC. His play, Bones of the Chinamen, set in Swatow (Shantou) in 1862, won the South Asian prize of the BBC International Playwriting Competition, coming in among the top 8 selected out of 1200 entries. Dean specializes in writing on the late Qing period of Chinese history and now lives in Asia. He has written two novels set in Hong Kong in 1857: Hangman's Point and Thieves Hamlet. His latest novel on China is A LOVE STORY: THE CHINA MEMOIRS OF THOMAS ROWLEY, a romantic and erotic work set in the 1800's. POP DARRELL'S LAST CASE, a detective novel, was published in 2014.