Almost Paradise

A local priest is murdered over a long-lost ancient cross, the cross which Magellan held in his hand the day he was killed by Lapu-Lapu in the Battle of Mactan. Alex, Kai, and Ernesto must solve the priest’s murder and find the lost relic before it can land in the wrong hands.

When Alex’s friend from the local gym is found murdered, Alex investigates and discovers his friend was involved in an underground badminton competition. Alex and Ernesto must go undercover as badminton players to solve the murder, and in the process, end up exposing a drug smuggling ring.

Alex befriends a boat mechanic wrongfully accused of murder in a remote fishing village, and, along with Kai and Ernesto, unravels an international smuggling operation and resolves a local blood feud in order to prove the man’s innocence.

When Alex temporarily moves in with Ernesto, he is drawn into a family drama that transcends generations, spans decades, and proves that, indeed, “the past is never dead; it is not even past.”

Alex’s ex-wife shows up with her new fiancé asking Alex to sign their divorce papers, but when the fiancé is mistaken for Alex and kidnapped by an old enemy, Alex finds himself racing to rescue the man.

During the traditional “Ghost Month” in the Philippines, Alex seems to be visited by the spirit of a dead man, wrongly accused of a crime, who seeks justice from the afterlife.

Before the grand opening of Mactan’s new resort casino owned and operated by the Villegas family, Ann Villegas recruits Alex to test the casino’s security designed by the great Barton Coyne. Alex assembles a team – including Kai, Ernesto, and Ernesto’s cousin Angelo – to pull off a mock heist.

Kai and Alex go undercover as a New Age-y couple at a self-help retreat in order to extract a naïve young woman from the clutches of a dangerous cult.

When Alex entangles himself in a homicide investigation on behalf of his love interest, Ann Villegas, he is forced to befriend a geriatric couple with peculiar personality traits, coming to terms with the fact that life – and people – are often more complicated than they appear.

Alex goes undercover as a prisoner and, with the help of Kai and Ernesto, figures out how The Waterboarder has been running his criminal empire from behind bars.