"Stop the presses One hundred thousand dollar reward offered for the return of George Harley Rockham "
That's more than enough to turn Shanghai newspaperman Jimmy Vance's head. Throw in the gorgeous dame who's offering the reward--Rockham's daughter Virginia--and he might lose his head altogether. As fast-talking as Jimmy Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story," Vance jumps at the chance . . . the money . . . and the girl.
But as Jimmy quickly discovers, there are several billion reasons to watch his back. Because that's how much Rockham is worth, and there are some very hard cases out there willing to kill to separate the old man from his money.
Next thing Jimmy knows, Virginia's tied to a chair, and he's got a couple of guns pointed at his head. But it'll take more than a little rope and a couple of firearms to keep this reporter down. The truth is tied to the mysterious fate of a steamship named "Shanung"--and what Jimmy finds could be the biggest story of his life . . . if he lives to tell it.
In the issue of "Smashing Novels" where this story first appeared the editor wrote: ""Loot of the Shanung "is a soul-stirring tale of the China Sea, a story of modern piracy set in the Far East. L. Ron Hubbard wrote it. He knows China. He has been there. He traveled through the country and met the people and observed their customs. "Smashing Novels" will have other stories from him--stories of far-off places and little known people. "He knows of what he writes.""

This book contains a memoir written by Miriam Lawrence describing the extraordinary voyage she made in 1848-50 aged 20. She had accompanied her husband, Captain Alexander Lawrence, on the maiden voyage of the Charlotte Jane, a wooden 3 mast merchant sailing ship. They set sail with their baby daughter, a teenage nursemaid, a surgeon and 264 emigrants for Sydney, Australia. Then they sailed to Hong Kong, Singapore, Bombay, Whampoa (Canton), returning via Cape Town to London. Besides the memoir, there are extracts from her husband's logbook and letters to and from Miriam's parents. There are also maps showing each stage of the voyage, illustrations of the ship from the Canterbury Museum Christchurch, New Zealand, and contemporary pictures of the places visited. They were nearly shipwrecked, faced fearful storms and at one point a near mutiny. Their second child was born in the China Seas. Miriam's writing provides an evocative account of what it had been like for a young woman to take part in such an adventure; one which many British merchant seamen were undertaking at that date: circumnavigating the world.