Performance Anomalies

Book excerpt: Victor Robert Lee's provocative literary spy novel Performance Anomalies launches a protagonist, partly of Chinese and Russian origin, to rival the most memorable espionage heroes. Cono 7Q is a startling young man of haunting heritage who has been gifted - or cursed - with an accelerated nervous system. An orphan and a loner, he acts as a freelance clandestine agent, happy to use his strange talents in the service of dubious organizations and governments - until, in Kazakhstan, on a personal mission to rescue a former lover, he is sucked into a deadly maelstrom of betrayal that forces him to question all notions of friendship and allegiance. Relevant to our geopolitical times, Performance Anomalies tracks the expansion of Beijing's imperial reach into Central Asia, and the takeover of corruption-riddled Kazakhstan. Cono 7Q's main adversary is a brutal Beijing agent whose personality has been twisted by the Cultural Revolution's devastation of his family. Performance Anomalies travels from Brazil and Stanford to Kazakhstan and the Tian Shan mountains, covering an engrossing emotional landscape set against the backdrop of an emerging new cold war between America and both China and Russia.