A Calder and Lam Thriller · Book One
In Tokyo, someone is always watching.
A slow-burning, realistic spy thriller about two exiles, a dead engineer and a watchlist with both their names on it. Coming soon. Read it before anyone else.
Become an advance reader Free early copy. No obligation.Two exiles. One dead engineer. A list with both their names on it.
Nathan “Cal” Calder spent thirteen years collecting intelligence for an American military unit that does not officially exist, until he objected to the wrong operation and was blamed for his own source’s death. Now he runs a one-man risk consultancy in Tokyo on a visa he can barely keep. A London law firm hires him to find a missing engineer. Three days later the engineer is found hanged in an Ueno business hotel, and Cal was across the road with a coffee while the body cooled above him.
Iris Lam was born in Hong Kong the month it was handed back. Her father is in prison under the National Security Law, her mother has a police bounty on her head, and her passport runs out next summer. She investigates financial crime for a living, and the dead engineer posted her an encrypted drive the day before he vanished. The password is the one question she asked him in a boardroom.
Cal has the dead man’s notebook. Iris has the drive. Together they show a facial-recognition firm selling its engine to Chinese public security while it feeds the Tokyo security police an illegal watchlist of foreign residents. The killer has already followed Iris through a cemetery at night. And when the whole of it is on her kitchen table, she is the one who has to decide what gets published, and who pays.
The Mirror Engine is the first book of a four-book series. Book Two, The Quiet Tenants, follows.
Get the finished ebook free, a few weeks before release day. If you enjoy it, an honest review in release week, good or bad, is the single biggest help a new author can get.
Reviews are always optional and always your own opinion. If you post one, it is good practice to mention you had an early copy.
A smaller group who read later books in the series before they are finished and tell me what works, what drags and what doesn’t ring true. Plain, honest notes are worth more than praise.
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Jem Tollan writes spy fiction about the people the machinery watches. The Mirror Engine is the first book of the series; The Quiet Tenants follows.