Spratlys Blend is a novel steeped in the oil intrigue and big business of the Far East. While Tom Clancy's SSN is a novelization on the race for supremacy in the Pacific Rim between the United States and China, Spratlys Blend is a suspense-adventure-thriller landscaping the Spratlys controversy in the South China Sea involving many nations.

When Vietnam vet Paul Gebler finds himself returning the South China Sea, he thinks twice. This time as an oil technocrat, not a soldier, on the hunt for the mother lode of hydrocarbon, instead of men. But that soon changes. Up for the big buck, Gebler is thrust back in a maze of diplomatic strife that was his soldier's life many year ago.

Who would ever be concerned about a few tiny islands known as the Spratlys, clustered together like pollen on a wildfower, too small to even be noticed? Well, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei and the Philippines -- for a start. Afloat in a sea of deceit, it's all Gebler can do to stay just ahead of the deadly game played by nations large and small. The dispute over the potentially oil-rich region summons the United States and the U.N. into the flash point.

Gebler, caught in a tug of love and war, clings to the fragile lifeline that is his relationship with the oil heiress, LOREL DeROMAN, who may yet save his life -- or end it.