Sons of the Republic

Greater Kinmen, the final battlefront in the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Kuomintang and the Communist People’s Liberation Army in 1949.

Now belonging to Taiwan, the island sits just kilometers offshore of China, the hulking giant threatening to take the “renegade state” back into the fold of the motherland by any means necessary, including all-out invasion. And yet, the state of affairs between the two nations seems peaceful, for the time being. But when the body of a businessman mysteriously washes up alongside a Taiwanese naval vessel docked at Kinmen, it sets in motion a series of shocking revelations which prove that when it comes to Sino-Taiwanese relations, all is definitely not what it seems. Jason Su, a young Taiwanese businessman raised overseas in the United States, finds himself swept up in a plot involving the Chinese Ministry of State Security, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, and the highest levels of power within the Chinese and Taiwanese governments. Together with his partner, Private Investigator Li-Yang Wang, Jason is forced into a role he never imagined he would have to play—that of Taiwan’s last hope in what could be the final chapter written in the Taiwan-China conflict.

Sons of the Republic explores the blurred intersection of crime, politics, and money in the PRC–ROC standoff.

— John Grant Ross

JW Henley’s debut crime novel offers a ghastly but realistic glimpse into the underbelly of cross-strait relations

— Dana Ter - Taipei Times