The Devil To Pay — Harold Robbins; Junius Podrug

Nash Novak, a struggling Seattle businesswoman who has been framed for arson and murder, is in desperate need of money for her defense. The only way for her to get it: A coffee plantation she has inherited. But there's a catch: She has to run the plantation, deep in the jungles of Colombia, a land of drug lords and warlords.The mysterious inheritance of the plantation, from the father she had never met, comes at the same time a criminal conspiracy is turning her life into a living hell-a conspiracy that stretches all the way to Colombia. Racing to South America, on the run from the police, she becomes entangled with suspicious characters: Ramon, rich and handsome, with a secret sex life that shocks even Nash though she considers herself an adventurous woman; Josh, an American expatriate, who claims to be a simple gem smuggler and arouses passions in Nash she thought were long dead; and Lily Soong, an erotic Chinese beauty who men-and women-lust after, often to their doom.But no one brings as much danger to her life as Pablo Escobar, king of the Medelln drug cartels, considered the most dangerous man in Colombia, the murder capital of the world. Things get even more complicated when Nash's quest to clear herself takes her to Shanghai, home of the powerful Chinese Triads that control the flow of dirty money from gambling, prostitution, drugs and murder.Refusing to let the cartel's murderers drive her off the plantation and ruin the lives of hundreds of families who work it, Nash tackles organized crime and police agencies on two continents to save her plantation . . . and stay alive.