From an American suburb incongruously set into a jungle clearing to the sleazy bars and high-rise offices of Jakarta; from a teeming neighborhood floating on a river to the dense, steaming rain forest -- Flight of the Hornbill is a thrill ride through an exotic Asian landscape peopled with unforgettable characters; some desperate to make a buck, some willfully ignoring their past, and most unforgettable of all, Ray Sharp, expatriate corporate investigator, struggling to find his place as an outsider in someone else's world. Flight of the Hornbill is loosely based on the facts of the real-life Bre-X gold fraud.Brilliantly capturing the lone-man-on-a-mission archetype that has been Dick Francis's forte for so many years, Stone puts to good use his knowledge of the horrifying treatment of women in a violently male-dominated society and turns out a heart-stopping ending. Not for the easily frightened." -- Library Journal
"[Flight of the Hornbill, Stone's] third outing (Grave Imports, 2007, etc.), written with panache and attention to evocative detail, recalls at its best the work of Ian Fleming." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Rich in atmosphere, intrigue and eroticism, Flight of the Hornbill recalls the best of Graham Greene in its ability to transport us to cloying, sinister climes we can smell and taste... Stone knows of what he writes and his authority comes through on every page, giving this thriller not just a propulsive pace, but suffusing it with the weight of authenticity; of hard-earned and world-weary experience of the sorry depths of human wickedness in pursuit of wealth." -- Craig McDonald, author of Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe nominated Head Games
Eric Stone's Flight of the Hornbill is the third in the Ray Sharp series of detective thrillers set in Asia and based on true stories. His previous series books include Grave Imports and The Living Room of the Dead. Shanghaied, the fourth in the series, will be out next year. Eric is also the author of Wrong Side of the Wall, a true-crime / sports biography. Eric worked for many years as a newspaper and magazine writer and photographer in the U.S. and Asia, covering everything from economics to crime; politics to sex, drugs and rock & roll. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
