Bøker av James a Calderwood

The Dragon starts his life in the Philippines on one of the smaller islands. Ali is the son of one of the town's local prostitutes Zeena. He works the markets looking for customers for his mother, who is starting to lose her looks due to her age and the volatile lifestyle she has lead over the years. Drugs in her early years did not help. Zeena's lifestyle has not helped Ali in his upbringing. He has been beaten by her customers on many occasions as he has tried to stop his mother being beaten by violent customers. Ali launches into a life of crime after robbing and stabbing an elderly jewellery trader on his way home from work one night. The police are looking for Ali who slips out of town to stay with his aunt Sasha in the mountains. He is with Sasha for a long time and has met a nice girl in the village. For the first time in his life the eighteen year old Ali is happy. Gentle Sasha is murdered by a young terrorist. Ali catches him and stabs him. Ali and Zeena leave their island town for Manilla. A sense of normality finds its way into their life only to be shattered by a chance meeting with a violent customer from her past. Ali and Zeena contrive a plan to murder this violent man. He is garroted with a length of wire as he is having sex with Zeena. Ali is then involved in the drug trade and is warned about a hit on his life arranged by Emelio Sanchez one of Manilla's head drug dealers and brothel owners. Emilio has threatened to toss Zeena off the local wharf bound with chains if Ali does not show up. Ali devises a cunning plan to murder Emilio on the way home from church one Sunday. Ali burns Emilio in his car after he causes it to crash. He and Zeena leave the Philippines and catch a small ship for Australia. In Cairns Australia Ali sees his first beautiful opal. He decides on buying opals and having other people steal them for him in his new base At Coober Pedy. Ali has now conscience when it comes to pay backs to and threat to his new business. People just go missing. He now has others to do these jobs. A sense of normality enters his life. All of this is shattered when a chain of disastrous events occur over a short time. There is an intertwining of different characters that are also on a quest to find the beautiful Australian black opal.

Bernado hides in the shrubs as his parents and clan are systematiclly killed by a troop of Nazi soldiers during WW2. He wathches as his clan are dumped into a deep grave hidden in a glade in the forest. Bernaado finds his way to a small town where he is lucky to meet up with an old Gypsy woman who was friends with his parents. Zelda lives in a small tumbledown cottage with a menagerie of animals she has saved from being shot. Zelda is a healer and teaches Bernado to forage for plants and fungi to make her potions. After nearly a year Bernado returns home to find her and her large Irish Wolf Hound dog Pepi killed near her burning house by German soldiers looking for food. Bernado is caught stealin in the vilage and is taken to a large town where he is placed into an orphanage. The ploliceman assures Bernado that the priests and nuns running the orphanage are good people. They are far from this . One priest is a sadistic paedophile, the dother could not care. Bernado is raped three times by this priest. During the cold months many of the children died of the cold in the orphanage. Bernado stabs the priest in the face with a nail and manages to escape from the orphanage. He is now almost sixteen. He fids work in town clearing up bombed building sites. This is lucrative becase he finds many valuable items in these houses. He finds five stray dogs. One is the Image of Pepi the wolf hound. He teaches the dogs to perform tricks. Pepi rides a three wheel bicycle during the show. Bernado is making more money at his shows than he is making at the building sites. He is asked to join a circus which is travelling through Europe. There are amny pretty girls in the circus who take the now eighteen year old bernado under their wing to teach him the facts of sex. Bernado is a willing pupil. He teaces Shandor his large dog and Esmerelda a prety small one to steal from people walking at night after the circus. bernado is making a large amount of money from this ruse. Al comes unstuck when Shando attacks the ringmaster of the circus when he is violently whipping a young horse. Bernado ends up in Hospitalwith a broken arm . He quickly returns to the circus to find all oof his money and jewelry stolen. The ringmaster and circus strongman have the money. Bernado sees one of the gold coins he found when clearing the bricks from the bombed houses. In unusual circumstances Bernado and the ringmasters girl retrieve the money and leave the circus. They travel to Anzio in Italy to escape the cold. A semi ruined building seems to call to them . They purchase the building and restart the casino.