SOILED ANGEL by Antone

About the book

Soiled Angel portrays the attempt which the Triad or new Chinese organized criminals make to gain a foothold in Newport, Rhode Island. Newport is a seaside town where the Navy and wealthy people cohabitate. Each hates the other except in this instance when they are both secretly beholden to the new Triad menace whose goal is to supplant the old Italian-American Mafia. They enlist the services of a crooked Assistant Attorney General named Matt Townes to help them. The source of the Triads' blackmail power is twofold: they furnish the Navy's hierarchy with free drugs and prostitutes; they also supply the wealthy with inexpensive servants in the form of illegal immigrant boat people. Their only resistance comes from a priest who taunts the people to turn against them. In order to silence the priest, the Triads kidnap his young sister and force her into prostitution in return for sparing his life. Then, they set out to destroy the priest's family name by dubbing her the "Soiled Angel," an old California '49er reference to a good girl gone bad.

The priest asks Rose Davies for help, and the former San Francisco police detective comes to Newport to help her despondent pal overcome a gang she knows well from her days in the Golden Gate area. The terrified townspeople and authorities watch this cunning, brilliant woman engage the gang's leaders in a game of bone-chilling mental chess. She sidesteps danger at every turn, preying on the very weakness the Triads consider their strengths: she dismantles them using the ancient power and fear tactics they made famous. We also learn she has another secret motive to return to Newport. She believed Matt Townes killed her father. She proves he did and settles a score with him in the climax. That done, she reconciles the townspeople by teaching them criminals feed on hate and divisiveness.