Title: The Red Turtle Project
Author: Don Westenhaver
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: David Tschanz
ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0738866482
The Red Turtle Project is an international thriller set primarily in Vietnam in the 1990's. Liang Weber is a beautiful Eurasian woman who inherits $500 million from her recently murdered father, Sing Han, a Singapore billionaire whose fortune is based on smuggling weapons and drugs.
She and her husband Sam learn that Sing Han has been assassinated by a ruthless secret society called the Mandarins. Led by a group of seven Chinese tycoons, the Mandarins have become incredibly wealthy and powerful using murder, kidnapping and theft on a global scale. They are furious when they find out that much of Sing Han's fortune was transferred to Liang just before they killed him.
After a worldwide manhunt for Sam and Liang, the Mandarins discover them in Vietnam, where she has donated her inheritance to the communist country, one of the poorest on earth, to transform it into a capitalist powerhouse, the newest "Asian Tiger". This grand economic experiment is dubbed the Red Turtle Project.
Five years later, the Red Turtle corporate logo, a smiling cartoon turtle, has become the symbol of the country's rapid improvement in the standard of living, an icon of nationalistic pride. Behind the scenes, however, the Mandarins gradually infiltrate the Red Turtle Corporation and are robbing the company through smuggling, stock manipulation, and other illegal activity. A reign of terror spreads, and anyone who protests against the crime and violence is immediately eliminated.
Finally the Mandarins' real plan is revealed. They're not merely taking over the Red Turtle Corporation, but the entire country of Vietnam. On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong, the bastion of capitalism and the home of the Mandarins, is reverting to the control of Communist China. The secret society is moving its base to Vietnam, to be feudal lords of the newly rich country.
