Peter de Vries, rugged and resourceful, is a rogue CIA agent, on the run from the Agency that is trying to kill him. While he is hiding out in a remote tropical island in the Philippines he gets involved in the salvage of a seventeenth century Spanish treasure ship. He meets a beautiful, elegant and refined English woman, an archeologist working at the wreck site. She is intrigued by the mystery surrounding de Vries and puzzled by his unexplained, detailed, knowledge concerning the Spanish galleon and events in the seventeenth century. Peter de Vries is posing as a scuba diver, but explodes into violent physical action on several occasions; in order to protect her, making her suspect there is much more to this other wise quiet man. How and why is he so skilled in deadly combat? How is it he knows so much about the history of the Spanish galleon lying on the bottom of the lagoon? A strong. Independent, feminist she is nevertheless powerfully drawn emotionally and sexually toward this enigmatic man, much against her better judgment and instincts!
The Manila Galleon will grip your from the outset, and will not leg go until the final denouement!
REVIEW
EXPATICA MAGAZINE, EUROPE
Expats have an advantage when writing fiction; doing unusual things in exotic places is often part of the experience of living and working outside your native country. Dutch resident Bernard W. Rees takes us to the Philippines in The Manila Galleon and to China, along the Silk Road and over the Himalayas into Pakistan in The Last Patriot.
Born in Llanelli in Wales, Rees has seen his fair share of the world. He grew up in Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi in Kenya. At sixteen he went to sea and got his first taste of the Orient. He emigrated to Canada in his early 20s where he traded ships and cargo for many years, from "the Americas to the Persian Gulf, China, Japan and Korea".
Following the death of his first wife in 1995, Rees decided he needed "to change my life and do something new". He sold his shipping business and moved to Manila, where, in his spare time, he searched for Spanish treasure ships.
This is when he developed another talent: he pens a good yarn. The main character of The Manila Galleon is Peter de Vries, a rogue CIA agent. Of course rogue CIA agents are common in thrillers these days, and one who has lost his memory isn't that original either. But what really matters is that Rees makes something of this character in this page-turning thriller, with a twist.
De Vries gets involved in the salvage of a 17th century Spanish treasure ship, while at the same time he must avoid the CIA and discover the significance of his dreams about the Galleon and its fatal encounter with Dutch privateers. The sole survivor was a Dutch prisoner, Captain Jeroen de Vries.
Rees wrote his second novel while living in the US from 2003 to 2005. The CIA is there again but this time the main setting is China. This book is heavier than Galleons as it deals with the "major problems facing the world today": energy security, terrorism and the looming potential of conflict between the US and China.
The hero, if that is the correct term, is Owen O' Brien, a cynical, alcoholic journalist and the heroine is an idealistic young doctor working with orphaned AIDS children in China.
Written as a memoir to his daughter, the book recounts how O'Brien comes into possession of secret documents outlining a plan to attack the US. The CIA, which will never hire Rees to do its PR, is again the bad guy as it joins forces with the Chinese to stop O'Brien fleeing with the papers.
If this was Hollywood, the hero would save the day at the last minute. But Rees, a world-wise expat, doesn't go for sugar-coated endings. Not to give too many secrets away, R