Foreign Seed

Set in China as

America gets involved in WWI, Foreign Seed follows newly minted Vice

Consul Samuel Sokobin’s first case as he investigates the disappearance of

Frank Meyer (of Meyer Lemon fame), explorer for the U.S. Department of Foreign

Seed and Plant Introduction, when he disappears from a steamship on the Yangtze

River. A rugged, Dutch immigrant, Meyer made a living seeking foreign specimens

as a man without a country, a feeling Sokobin denies as he ticks off one more

year living in temporary housing in China and shielding himself from the

possibility of close friendship. Moreover, Meyer is rumored to be Jewish,

igniting the prejudice Sokobin can’t shake as the son of Jewish immigrant

laborers in New Jersey. Sokobin needs to find Meyer, and quickly, if the body

is to be properly cared for. Sokobin travels upriver with his enigmatic

interpreter, Mr. Lin, while fighting flaming visions of his fighter pilot

little brother’s apparent demise in France. Always the hotshot, young Ethan has

been missing for months, and Sokobin refuses to betray him by mourning him. The

search for Meyer leads Sokobin from Nanking to uncharted villages to the

streets of Shanghai, where he is confronted with his past and a love that is no

longer within his reach.