Simon Koo is an ambitious Australian-born Chinese who goes to Singapore in the mid-sixties to work for Samuel Oswald Wing, an advertising agency. But the Wing brothers, who run the agency, are not what they seem. There is soon trouble when Simon falls in love with the forbidden Mercy B. Lord, the illegitimate daughter of a Japanese officer and a Chinese mother who abandoned her on the doorstep of a Catholic orphanage.

With no family or connections, this beautiful young womanis powerless to resist the evil influence of Beatrice Fong, a manipulative businesswoman, who lures her into the dark anddangerous international trade in sex workers and heroin trafficking involving the American CIA.

Set in a city rapidly growing-up in the aftermath of World War II and amidst the political landscape of the escalating Vietnam War, Fortune Cookie is at once a love story, a mystery of intrigue and adventure and a rollicking insight into the advertising game. With a nod to Courtenay’s career in advertising, Fortune Cookie is smart, funny, and masterful storytelling at its best.