An exotic and humor-packed joyride across Asia
- Book: PACIFIC DASH – From Asia Vagabond to Casino King
- Location: South East Asia
- Author: Chet Nairene
PACIFIC DASH follows a young boy from the Illinois cornfields to Hong Kong in 1968, due to a family job transfer. There he attends the international school and runs with the the sons and daughters of Asia’s elite, the princelings. A catastrophic event sends him back to the USA, but he has already been changed forever.
At university in New England, he becomes the protege of Demetrio Luminoso, the reigning god of letter, winner of every literary prize extant. When that relationship and his budding career collapses, he does what comes natural … namely, he flees to Asia.
His life over the next two decades sees him backpacking across Indonesia, living in South Malaysia and working in an illegal floating casino in international waters, offshore from Singapore. He crosses the wrong Asian mafioso and if forced to flee, but during a Hong Kong stopover on the way home, he reconnects with a childhood pal, Jackson Toh, the scion of a wealthy family in the Macau gambling trade. He and Jackson essentially reinvent North Asia gambling, coming up with the ‘whale gambler’ junket.
Amassing riches beyond imagination, Dash’s troubles really take off then!
This book is designed for reader delight and is akin to an armchair trip across Southeast Asia. Locations include Bali, Java, Singapore, Johor Baru, Bangkok, Taipei, Macau and others. The scenery descriptions are lush and exotic, and the characters populating the book are quirky and flamboyant, from Little Fatty to Snakehead Goh.
The Amazon reviews are uniformly gushing for this one — read it and enjoy!