Island of Betrayal by Alan L. Moss (2010) Ex Libris Used Books

Hardcover with DJ in Very Good (VG) condition.

A beautiful young girl is taken to an unconventional medical facility. Weak and disoriented, she is subjected to a radical, untested stem cell procedure. Months later, in a hot air balloon speeding across New Zealand s Central Canterbury Plains, the results of that test give birth to an international conspiracy. When a giant tuna cannery makes early tax payments to the American Samoan treasury, a high-ranking but corrupt government official will divert millions to New Zealand s Health-Cell Corporation. The medical research firm is desperate for cash while its stem cell breakthrough undergoes a required three-year test protocol. In return, Health-Cell will supply the official and his co-conspirators with stem cell cure kits to sell on the black market, yielding huge profits. The only way the early tax payments will not be made, scuttling the conspiracy, is if a Special Industry Committee raises Samoa s minimum wage by more than two percent. Enter Michael Bloom, a government economist charged with the responsibility to administer public hearings that lead to deliberations of the Committee. He has risked his marriage to get Samoa s impoverished workers the significant wage increases long denied them. Unknowingly, his efforts to win large wage gains for Samoa s workforce threaten to derail the conspiracy. The story accelerates to breakneck speed as Bloom encounters the beautiful director of Samoa s Visitor Information Bureau. He is framed with a dastardly crime, flees the police, and returns to the South Pacific to unravel the conspiracy and get revenge.