Near the end of a twitchy year, as China opens its doors to foreign investment and Hong Kong ponders its future, Pearl Green returns on the same day that Marcus Brown arrives on a mission to set up an investment project to benefit his affluent Native American Indian community in Florida, America. Pearl is back to resume management of The June Bowen Foundation and takes up temporary residence in The Hilton Hotel. Marcus, uneasy about his first trip overseas, also checks in to The Hilton and is about to enjoy his first meal in Hong Kong when he is approached by a conman, Terry Shaw, who begins laying the foundations for carrying out a scheme to relieve Marcus of his people's investment funds. The following day, Marcus's sense of unease turns to panic when he is framed for a murder which takes place in the hotel, that of the wealthy business tycoon Dennis Childs, the father of one of Pearl's friends - the famous Belinda Jones, celebrity wife of rock legend Smut Jones. Whilst Marcus languishes in a prison cell, Belinda returns to bury her father and disappears from The Hilton while on her way to visit Pearl. Peter Benson, concerned that Pearl is somehow central to Belinda's kidnapping, consults Pearl's father. When James Gates announces that he will be in Hong Kong during the first week of winter and old friend Yip Yee Koon - whose own networks are humming - warns her to be on the alert, Pearl knows that the atmosphere described by Yip as a state of strangeness means that trouble has arrived in Hong Kong. It takes all the qualities that the mythological turtle can harness - wisdom and the valour of a warrior - for James, Pearl, Peter Benson and Yip Yee Koon to overcome the criminal forces that enter their lives in this dark and dangerous winter - a Black Tortoise Winter.