The Mystery of the Ming Connection, Expanded Edition

The Mystery of the Ming Connection is a light-hearted, riveting page turner with two serious themes: international art theft and sex trafficking. The story unfolds with the theft of a priceless Ming Dynasty jar from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Sandra Troux and her lifelong friends, Bobbi Power and Lizbet Sheridan, are quickly engaged in pursuing the elusive Gold Scarf Man, the probable art thief, across Korea and China. Two additional thefts of Ming porcelains from museums in Seoul and Beijing threaten to set off an international incident – overshadowed only by a series of scurrilous kidnappings of local and foreign young women. The horror of human trafficking is brought close to home when Bobbi’s college-student daughter Sophie Rose, adopted from China, is kidnapped from right under their noses.
At the site of each theft and kidnapping, a curious coin is left behind. The coin is engraved with Chinese characters for Taina Ziping and a right-facing swastika, the hideous symbol of the Nazis. Two of the words on the coin hark back to the Taiping Rebellion of 1800s China. But what do the other two words mean? And why is the Nazi symbol engraved on it as well? Is the coin left as a clue, an arrogant calling card, or a threat? And what do the Taiping Rebellion, the Nazi swastika, the desire for a valuable gold and diamond bracelet, museum art thefts, and kidnapping all have to do with each other?
In a series of thrilling chases and adventures – by horseback on the Great Wall, through the streets of Beijing in a blinding blizzard, and underground in a secret Xian tunnel system filled with cells of trafficked girls, Sandy and her sister sleuths pursue the heinous criminals to unravel the mystery of the Ming connection. The book’s climatic chapter brings the super shero trio face to face with the surprising and heart-stopping solution to The Mystery of the Ming
Connection.