In Vietnam in the early 1980s, the legacy of the American War still weighs heavily and life under the Hanoi regime is corrupted and precarious. Alexander, a US soldier, earns his living procuring young women – as prostitutes, wives, mistresses and maids – for wealthy men. For too long, Alexander has tricked himself into thinking that he is helping these girls. Now, though, he is waking up: he knows he is manipulative, and far too good at his job. It is time to become something better.

There comes a last, fateful job. Phuc, a Vietnamese businessman, driven to despair by debt, loses his daughter in a backroom gambling den, to the implacable racketeer Cheung Hu. Seeing no other way out, Phuc contrives to procure a girl to take his daughter's place in the trade. The role of procurer falls to Alexander; the role of victim to Hanh, a destitute toilet attendant who lost her father to the very war that brought Alexander to Vietnam.

THE TRADER OF SAIGON is a dark, brooding thriller; a story of sex, debt and duty, in which a man trapped in an abyss of his own making must make a life-defining choice: stay true to the man he has become, or take one final grasp at becoming human once again. A redemption fable of sorts, hurtling towards a terrible denouement.

Lucy Cruickshanks is 27 years old. She holds an undergraduate degree in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Warwick and an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, having passed with Distinction. She has held various copywriting positions and now works as a Bid Writer for a Fortune 250 company. She has travelled widely in Vietnam and Asia.

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