THE DETECTIVE GONE GRAY

Sometimes trouble follows a man.
Sometimes a man has to go looking for it.

The Chinese foreign minister is speaking at a Bangkok university, and there's a diplomatic reception for him before the speech. Like most diplomatic receptions, it's an occasion that's dull as dishwater.

Until it isn't.

The assembled diplomats discover the main doors of the reception hall have been locked. That's when a masked gunman comes in through the back and opens up with a silenced MP5. It's like shooting the proverbial fish in the proverbial barrel. Thirteen dead and nine wounded, including the British ambassador, the Korean ambassador, and the American deputy chief of mission.

The Thai police are overwhelmed, and they ask Interpol to send a homicide investigator to help them. Interpol doesn't investigate homicides, so the regional office asks the Singapore police to lend them an experienced detective.

Inspector Samuel Tay was once a legendary investigator for Singapore's Criminal Investigation Department, but now he's retired. It wasn't exactly voluntary, of course, but that's another story. When he's asked to help the Thai police, he reluctantly agrees. Bangkok's not his favorite place, and the Thai police aren't his favorite people, but retirement is ... well, dull.

Worse, he's getting old, and it's a melancholy feeling to know he's at the end of his career. Just maybe, he thinks, he's got one more big case in him before it really is time to let it all go.

Maybe he does, but there are powerful forces out there that aren't going to let it be this case. If he gets too close to the secret they've hidden behind the slaughter, they've already decided what they'll do.

They'll just kill Samuel Tay, too.