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When
a wealthy Singaporean businessman is found ritually beheaded
in his high-security penthouse apartment and his severed
head precisely buried in the soil of the condo grounds,
the only clue to his killer is the single item taken from
the dead man's home a mysterious statue of a headless
priest, statues that were, until then, never photographed
and thought never to have even existed.
According
to local occult folklore, when Singapore came under
colonial rule in
1824, British security regiment sent ahead of
the official handover uncovered 4 cults operating in
the South East Asian trading port. To stamp their authority
on the island, the regiment executed the four cult
leaders, beheading them in public. Their defiant followers
cast 4 statues of headless priests in solid gold into
which the spirits of their beheaded leaders supposedly
went after their deaths. 14 macabre riddles held the
key to unlocking the power of the statues and a succession
of ruthless businessmen enjoyed immense wealth after
obtaining the statues. However, the existence of the
statues had never been proven until now.
Jack
Keng, a former red beret commando with a renegade streak,
is brought in
to solve the murder before word gets out that a serial
killer could be at work among the elite of Singapore
society. Working with a black ops organization under
the direction of his former army Lieutenant Colonel,
Keng discovers that the dead tycoon had hired a prominent
professor to analyze a 150-year-old manuscript of the
14 riddles. The professor has an explosive theory he
believes that the true answer to the riddles lies in
Feng Shui. According to him, the 4 statues actually
represent an altar that requires ritual sacrifice to
unleash the ultimate power of the statues. With the
riddles suggesting that the statues must be acquired
2 days apart, the race is on to find out who has the
remaining statues and stop the killer before he strikes
again.
8 Days.
4 Statues. 1 Killer. Who dies next?
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Headless is available
online:
Amazon / iUniverse / Barnes & Noble
© Kenn
Delbridge 2002
All rights reserved
ISBN 0-595-26038-1 |
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