Death by Platinum

Doc Martin, a Texas precious metals geologist, is hired to help U.S. Treasury and Japanese National Police begin a quest for 450 kilos of illegal platinum ore smuggled into Japan. The only clues are the headless-handless corpse of an ex-pat American sailor and a 4.5-kilogram bag of black sand found in a waterfront alley of Yokosuka, Japan. The plot revolves around Colombian platinum ore hidden in a secret vault with a decapitated skeleton on Japanese-occupied Truk Atoll in 1944. This treasure, worth 25 million of today’s dollars, remained on the tiny Pacific island for sixty years. My novel integrates WWII history with recent criminal activity, police action, platinum geology and humor into a weird tale of greed and murder. Readers will learn that war-time needs for platinum went beyond jewelry and dentistry and that scratching this metal out of the dirt is not so easy. This book targets adult readers who go for flawed, quirky characters, international settings, intrigue and gruesome homicide.