} 幸福只是水中的倒影 。

Invisible Trade
High-class sex for sale in Singapore

by Gerrie Lim

When an ambitious, adventurous gent named Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles “discovered” the tiny Southeast Asian island of Singapore in 1819, claiming it for the British Crown, he envisioned it as a geographical gateway between East and West. Now an independent city-state, Singapore is considered an Asian economic miracle, still a strategic crossroads, but its position on the map has also garnered bluechip status in the international sex industry. Thanks to the constant influx of business travelers, a floating world exists that few talk about, where beautiful escorts from various countries offer discreet companionship for a price, one not usually proffered in the bars and brothels of Asia.

Writer Gerrie Lim investigated this phenomenon and gained access to the secret world of highpriced sex workers. The result is a series of lucid portraits offering insights into this remarkable area of modern commerce. His subjects are women who are lavishly rewarded with money and gifts, some diverging from the oft-trod path to perform kinky services that include whipping and spanking, others being flown to exotic resorts in the company of men with money to burn. He also enters the shadowy domain of gay male escorts and karaoke hostesses, whose views challenge societal norms and question assumptions made about their career choices. The result is a fascinating work of cultural observation, from the vantage point of an eloquent literary voice.


Invisible Trade II
Secret lives and sexual intrigue in Singapore

by Gerrie Lim

In this long-awaited sequel to the Singapore bestseller Invisible Trade, journalist Gerrie Lim seeks to unravel and demystify two major aspects of the sex industry in modern Singapore: the secretive double lives led by the beautiful, upscale escorts and the reasons why men habitually need to spend money to pay for sex. Both, he discovers, involve addictive behavior fed by deep existential forces fraught with anger and pain, often disguised as carnal longing.

There’s the girl who works at a public relations agency by day and moonlights as an escort by night, the karaoke-bar mamasan who deals in wild and wanton girls from mainland China, the American male escort who gets paid by visiting Shanghai socialites for his companionship both in an out of their hotel bedrooms, and the Singaporean university student who freelances as a bondage model. Male customers include the Englishman who went on a rabid sex spree in the red-light district of Geylang following his divorce, and the self-proclaimed diehard sex tourist from Los Angeles who came to Southeast Asia to sample its professional paragons of feminine perfection, finally facing his nemesis among the nightbirds of Singapore.

As with Invisible Trade, this is investigative reportage with a startling difference—smart and sardonic, based on true lives and vivid memories, often evocative and haunting.


Change Of Heart

by Jodi Picoult

Shay Bourne - New Hampshire’s first death row prisoner in 69 years – has only one last request: to donate his heart post-execution to the sister of his victim, who is looking for a transplant. Bourne says it’s the only way he can redeem himself…but with lethal injection as his form of execution, this is medically impossible. Enter Father Michael Wright, a young local priest. Called in as Shay’s spiritual advisor, he knows redemption has nothing to do with organ donation – and plans to convince Bourne. But then Bourne begins to perform miracles at the prison that are witnessed by officers, fellow inmates, and even Father Michael – and the media begins to call him a messiah. Could an unkempt, bipolar, convicted murderer be a savior? It seems highly unlikely, to the priest. Until he realizes that the things Shay says may not come from the Bible…but are, verbatim, from a gospel that the early Christian church rejected two thousand years ago…and that is still considered heresy.

Change Of Heart looks at the nature of organized religion and belief, and takes the reader behind the closely drawn curtains of America’s death penalty. Featuring the return of Ian Fletcher from Keeping Faith, it also asks whether religion and politics truly are separate in this country, or inextricably tangled. Does religion make us more tolerant, or less? Do we believe what we do because it’s right? Or because it’s too frightening to admit that we may not have the answers?


THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

by Stieg Larsson

Set in Stockholm and a small country town in the north of Sweden, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO tells the mesmerizing story of disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who has been charged with and convicted of libel after writing a story about sketchy financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. Blomkvist’s conviction shakes him to his professional core and even threatens Millennium, the magazine for which he is publisher. To add insult to injury, he knows he was right about Wennerstrom --- if only he could prove it. But with things looking exceedingly bleak, he tells his partner and sometime girlfriend, Erika Berger, that he’s going to leave Stockholm and accept a curious job offer.

Fading business tycoon Henrik Vanger, now 82 and living in semi-retirement in the small northern community of Hedestad, summons Blomkvist to his home and lays out a rather strange opportunity for him. Vanger wants to hire him for a two-fold purpose: first, to write a chronicle of the Vanger family; and second, to solve the mystery of one of the darkest moments in that family’s history --- the murder of his great-niece Harriet in 1966. But why is Vanger proposing this to him? As strange as it seems, Blomkvist starts to seriously consider the offer. He is sort of persona non grata in the journalism business at the moment, and most tempting of all, Vanger has offered him confidential information that will be given to him after one year of his work and research on the Vanger project --- information guaranteed to bring down Wennerstrom once and for all.

But the endless reams of paperwork and police files, not to mention chasing down leads, proves exhausting for Blomkvist. He realizes that he needs to call in a crackerjack assistant to help him research. And who better than the woman who gave such a thorough background check on him to Vanger? The sullen but street-smart Lisbeth Salander, who, with her dyed raven-black hair “looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy with a gang of hard rockers,” is brought into the mix to aid in his investigation. Salander, although 24, is a ward of the state, which has deemed her mentally unstable and therefore must be looked after by a guardian. Her old state-appointed guardian had been a wonderful, stabilizing force in her very sad life.

However, with his sudden illness, a new, less wonderful guardian had been appointed, and soon he’s making unwanted advances. Salander must try to find a way to navigate this precarious situation, because one bad report from this new sentinel and she can be placed in a home against her will. Made tough by an even tougher childhood, Salander is a star researcher but keeps mostly to herself. With her multiple tattoos and piercings, she exudes a kind of odd charm. Her boss at the security firm likens her to a “nagging itch, repellent and at the same time tempting.” Despite her anti-social ways, she has a knack of ferreting out information so thoroughly that Blomkvist invites her to join the investigation. This unlikely pair sets about finding what happened to Vanger all those years ago.