Oriental Vagabonds

Richard Regan joined the British Merchant Marine in 1970, at a time when the Red Ensign still flew at the stern of a quarter of the world's shipping. Seeing service in freighters, tankers and passenger ships, followed by thirty-five years working ashore for shipping companies and shipbuilders, Richard has visited almost every corner of the globe, and has amassed a wealth of sights, settings, experiences and characters that are the inspiration for his writing. Oriental Vagabonds is his first novel, and while set a generation prior his own career, some of the ports and locations described had changed little when Richard first visited them, and the ageing tramp ship at the centre of the story is little different from one in which he twice circumnavigated the world. Richard now lives in Fremantle, Western Australia where he enjoys sailing his boat on the Swan River with his family, including Bosun their beagle, while maintaining his connection with the sea through regular cruises. Richard continues to write short fiction and non-fiction, and is currently working on his second novel, intended to be both prequel and sequel to Oriental Vagabonds.

The eve of World War 2. Hitler is finalising plans for the conquest of Europe and flexing his muscles in Spain, while the Japanese are poised to invade China, and eyeing off the resources of the East Indies and Indochina to fuel their war machine.Dangerous times, but there are still profits to be made by men like hard-bitten Skipper Bill Rowden and his vagabond crew, as they work their aging tramp steamer around the treacherous waters of the Far East. Uncharted reefs, tropical storms, corrupt officials, smuggling and piracy are all in a day's work to Rowden and his crew, which includes an embittered hard drinking aristocrat, a knife wielding Welshman and a hot-headed, hard-fisted Australian.
On what begins as a routine voyage to New Guinea, Rowden discovers an illegal shipment of arms concealed in his ship, setting off a chain of increasingly dangerous events that drag him unwittingly into the centre of Nazi, Soviet and British attempts to gain the upper hand, before war finally breaks out.
Entangled with Chinese warlords, triads and a beautiful Russian adventuress, Rowden narrowly escapes Shanghai before the bombs start to fall, but his enemies are closing in. Deep in the Pacific, in a remote coral fringed lagoon, Rowden and his crew face a violent and explosive confrontation, with little more than fists and wits to keep them alive.