cover image The Sea Lion

The Sea Lion

Franklin Allen Leib. Dutton Books, $19.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-453-00729-0

Setting his tale of high-level financial machinations against the volatile background of the Far East, Leib ( Fire Arrow ) puts a clever twist on a timely thriller. The story opens with Holden Chambers, one of the ``lions'' in the wide-open Hong Kong financial world of the early 1980s, clinging to the driver of a speeding motorcycle that is carrying them across the Malaysian landscape--with police in hot pursuit. That wild flight is merely prologue, however; the plot then flashes back to the recent arrival in Hong Kong of Barbara Ramsey, wife of one of Chambers's banking rivals, a woman intent upon joining the lions in their den. She and Ramsey are immediately drawn to each other, even as Ramsey convinces the heretofore reluctant government of Singapore to float an enormous bond, setting off a bitter business struggle. Then the mysterious informant known as Sea Lion begins circulating rumors of a forthcoming political upheaval, frightening traders in New York and London. Leib, himself the former officer of a Manhattan bank's Asian subsidiary, overcomes some stilted dialogue and awkward writing with authentic detail and local color. Most readers will stay for the long haul, wanting to learn at last whose fine hand is behind the diabolical power play. (June)