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The Hong Kong Letter
by Michael Burke
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 27th August, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-907179-09-9
Price: €18
It was to be a straight forward job, a few days examining the books, then some fun time in the city of lights. But things never go according to plan, Murphy’s Law is ever present, ‘If it can go wrong it will.’
Scott Dillon is sent to Hong Kong by his bosses in New York to complete an independent audit on a small local bank that needs IMF accreditation to expand beyond Hong Kong. It was to be a straight forward job, a few days examining the books, then some fun time in the city of lights. But things never go according to plan, Murphy’s Law is ever present, ‘If it can go wrong it will’.
His colleague Tina has been carrying out the audit but encounters a minor accounting discrepancy going back to 1898, the year the Chinese granted the British a 99 year lease on Hong Kong. The manager of the time had accepted title deeds to the New Territories as security against a loan. The problem was, only part of the loan was ever drawn down, and somehow the deeds had disappeared. The deeds had to be in the bank, but where?
Dillon quickly realises that the banks current chairman has a plan; a plan to grab another bank that’s under investigation by the fraud squad, and its chairman has gone missing. But can he fund the takeover, and will his board of directors go along with him?
Things take an unexpected turn when they discover that Tina is being followed, but why? Dillon does what he does best, hurt people for information, but the information he extracts leaves them even more baffled, and they discover that there’s someone in the bank who has a completely different agenda, an agenda to bring down the chairman.
