Awaken the Dragon: A Richard Ireton Novel (9780805445312)

See more of this title: Awaken the Dragon
See more by this author: David Aikman

Richard Ireton, a Hong Kong-based correspondent for America's top news magazine, is about to discover dangerous new political currents flowing through South China. Assigned to investigate the disappearance of an American businessman, he uncovers the growing influence of Qigong, a Taoist meditation and martial arts movement, among Chinese organized crime gangs and plotting army troops.

Richard Ireton is a Hong Kong-based foreign correspondent for an American weekly news magazine. When he is sent to Guangdong, the Chinese province adjacent to Hong Kong, to investigate the disappearance of Chuck McHale, a missing American, he discovers there are dangerous new political currents flowing through South China. In the middle of these developments are practitioners of Qigong, a Taoist meditation and martial arts movement, who are rallying around their Great Master Wu. These fiercely anti-foreign Qigong adherents have allied with renegade forces of the Chinese army, and Ireton learns that together they pose a dangerous new threat to peace in Asia and relations with the United States. Ireton's hunt for McHale, who has run afoul of these Qigong army elements, brings him into the heart of China's underground "house church" movement, where McHale has sought refuge.