Pearson’s first work of fiction draws on his experience in the field of providing AI solutions to casinos in Southeast Asia in this high-rolling literary thriller. Anthony Wilson takes up a job in his twin brother Cyrus’s company and arrives in Macau to oversee the implementation of face recognition technology for client casinos. He befriends Cash Cheang, a flamboyant crypto king. Cash wants Anthony to write his biography and also to help sell his new cryptocoin venture, a floating casino. As he falls for Vivian Liu, a member of Cash’s team with an agenda of her own, Anthony realizes that Cash holds explosive secrets that could incriminate bigwigs in the Chinese bureaucracy. It all gets murkier still when Detective Fonseca warns Anthony that there’s a killer out to get him.

Pearson’s knowledge of the milieu and the over-the-top characters who run it gives the material a bustling verisimilitude, as Cash, a pompadoured devotee of American country music, and company scheme, dream, and preen—Cash moves, Pearson writes, with “the confident trot of a honey badger on the prowl for a late afternoon snack of King Cobra.” A screenwriter who never got his break, Anthony’s an observant, relatable protagonist, blessed with acerbic wit, grim humor and a propensity to dish out quotes in the oddest of situations (“they make me look smarter than I really am,” he admits.) His uneasy relationship with his twin, where it’s his role to sacrifice for the other, is also delineated well.

The novel will both delight and disgust readers fascinated with wealth and power run amok. A killer is introduced in the first chapter but then mostly forgotten, a quirk that could come from one of the unproduced screenplays Anthony describes, and the pandemic plays a surprising role as the plot twists reveal themselves. As a thriller, The Dead Chip Syndicate never develops much tension, but it’s quick, surprising, and alive with memorable talk and striking detail.

The Dead Chip Syndicate, by Andrew W. Pearson, is a contemporary thriller based on the Chinese "willingness to give up food and water before they give up gambling." Set in the small country of Macau, an administrative region of China and the world's gambling capital, the novel uses the Chinese gambling mecca as the background for a suspense-filled story of greed, illegal money laundering, and junket operations.

Pearson's extensive knowledge and personal experiences in Southeast Asia are apparent in his writing. With a deep understanding of the region's geography and culture, he skillfully portrays Macau as a mesmerizing but perilous destination. The characters he introduces are vibrant, audacious, and unapologetic, adding an extra layer of intrigue to the narrative.

The protagonist, forty-seven-year-old Anthony Wilson, has left his unsuccessful novelist and screenwriter career to join his twin brother's business ventures in China. The novel engages the reader from the opening pages as Anthony worries about his plane crashing on landing in the Philippines. On arrival, he is informed that his life has been threatened and that his brother is missing with millions in gold.

Anthony's life flashes back eight months to when he agreed to host an ICO (an event to raise capital) for brother Cyrus's Exegesis Asian company for casino owners. The novel uses many acronyms familiar to readers interested in finance. Reaching Macau, Anthony enters the world of junket gambling, where extravagant incentives are offered to high-rollers and VIPs to gamble exclusively in specific casinos. Anthony meets Cash Chenge, an extravagant, wealthy Chinese casino owner who contracts Anthony to write his biography.

The plot includes references to dead chip programs, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Onecoin, and other cryptocurrency terminology that may not be familiar to the reader but are eye-opening in today's world of Ponzi schemes, graft, and get-rich-quick ruses. Bizarre, mysterious Chinese customs, government policies, and the law are interwoven into this tale of intrigue.

Anthony suspects his "evil" twin of planning his murder. However, when Cyrus and his wife, who are on board a sailing craft loaded with currency and gold, go missing, Anthony is willing to risk his life to investigate and rescue them and the money. The plot thickens. The year 2019 is challenged by the Covid-19 epidemic. The police are hunting Chase, Cyrus, and his wife are deathly ill with the virus, and Anthony is suspected of the murder of a beautiful young woman.

Anthony's prior experience as a screenwriter allows him to be observant and to tell his story with relatable visuals. The novel will engage readers who are fascinated with wealth and power, and illegal gains.

The novel offers valuable insights for readers intrigued by the captivating world of Crypto and Artificial Intelligence. With its educational approach, it serves as an informative and enlightening read.

The conclusion is unexpected but satisfying as it pulls together the story's diverse narratives. A Chinese saying, "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned," is a reoccurring theme that sums up the complex plot.

Forty-seven-year-old failed screenwriter Anthony Wilson leaves Hollywood behind to help run the Asian arm of his twin brother’s AI company.

Once in Macau, Anthony’s client is a prominent and infamous casino operator, Cash Cheang. Cash wants Anthony to design a facial recognition software package for his casino and enlists him to help sell a new crypto coin. As the money piles up, so does the laundering, corruption, and betrayal. But is the biggest treachery orchestrated by Cyrus, Anthony’s twin?...

The Dead Chip Syndicate begins in March 2019, eight months ahead of most of the novel. It’s horribly obvious that things, whatever they might be, have not particularly gone accordingly to plan for Anthony.

It’s a strong, confident, and accomplished start that sets up several questions and avenues of curiosity for the reader. Not only is it clear that Anthony has made some serious enemies in Macau, but it’s also transparent that his relationship with his twin, Cyrus, is nastily complicated to the point of being biblical.

Chapter Four takes the reader back and straight into the mind-bogglingly excessive, indulgent, high-stakes, murky world of Cash Cheang, tearing around Macau in his lime-green Lamborghini with Anthony along for the ride.

And what a ride it is. Cash is both a prototypical character and a nebulous one. The reader and Anthony are never quite sure who he is and what he’s up to. But, rest assured, there is not much he isn’t up to, and he’s up to his neck.

Although Cash drives the early part of the narrative, The Dead Chip Syndicate is a novel that moves between sub-genres surprisingly yet capably. The thriller framework harbors several elements that simmer away, including family drama, romance, and a supremely interesting if terrifying commentary on the socio-political anthropology of the Chinese elite.

Pearson knows this world, geographically and culturally, incredibly well and Macau fascinates and repels in equal measure. Notwithstanding, The Dead Chip Syndicate may have benefitted from footnotes or a glossary for clarification, especially regarding the cryptocurrency and gambling vernacular, which can become a touch overwhelming in places. A map of Macau may also have been beneficial.

Nonetheless, Anthony who begins the novel somewhat enigmatically and seemingly unassuming develops into a complex and single-minded character with several layers and motivations.

He is open about his time as a screenwriter and as events in the Far East escalate, the references to Hollywood and, writing, in general, become strangely integral to the story taking place on the opposite side of the world.

Indeed, whilst the duplicity is running, The Dead Chip Syndicate also evolves to become a novel about a novel and might be the novel that Anthony writes which, subsequently, becomes a film. This literary hall of mirrors possibly shouldn’t work amid an intricate Asian thriller but it does.

Anthony’s toxic dynamic with Cyrus is riveting. Anthony appears as the weaker twin hampered by a sense of inferiority, but, as the story progresses, and the reader is made aware of what occurred at boarding school, this impression of Anthony alters intriguingly.

However, it could be leveled that Detective Fonseca is the real star of The Dead Chip Syndicate. Perceptive, morally casual, occasionally menacing yet oddly principled, he and Anthony verbally thrust and parry with mutual disdain laced with grudging respect, and their loaded exchanges make for gripping reading.

Anthony’s situation with Vivian personally lacked conviction. Their connection seemed forced, and I was not surprised by the end game. Despite this, her presence was certainly required within the novel and she is utilized better in the earlier scenes.

Overall, The Dead Chip Syndicate is a deeply engrossing, insightful, and stylish novel that proves difficult to put down. Well worth a look.

I’ll admit that I didn’t fall in love with this book right off the bat. But by the second or third chapter, it had really begun to grow on me.

The protagonist is Anthony, a struggling writer (aren’t we all) who ends up getting pulled into the high-stakes world of Chinese money laundering, Macau gambling casinos, AI, and crypto currency. Before long, he becomes the target of an assassin, but who is it? Anthony must figure this all out while trying to simultaneously, smuggle riches out of China, maintain his burgeoning relationship with his new girlfriend, help his estranged twin brother and sister-in-law survive pandemic known as Covid, and keep a pesky detective off his tail.

Author Andrew W. Pearson does an excellent job of keeping the action going without over doing it. The characters are believable, fun, and multi-dimensional. He builds the tension perfectly to the denouement with a surprise ending that wraps up everything neatly.

The Dead Chip Syndicate would make a great movie!