Death of a Coast Watcher is a gripping and ambitious novel that ranges across time and space, exploring the distant ramifications of a seemingly minor act of violence on a remote island during WWII. Deeply atmospheric and with a firm command of local cultures, it plays with the misunderstandings that form part of all human relationships and lays them bare as key to the human condition itself.
Description
In 1943 on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, a Japanese officer beheads Hugh Rand, an Australian spy — a coast watcher. The spectators include villagers he terrorised as his mind frayed under the stress of pursuit by soldiers and their hounds. Rand’s influence transcends his death. For decades he plagues characters who strive to cope with him and one another in New Guinea, the Gilbert Islands, Australia and Japan. Who misperceives? Lies? Self-destructs? Suffers? Loves? The layers unfold as the author entices us through cultural, historical and intellectual curtains, deep into minds and relationships disturbed by the Pacific war and Rand’s legacy.
Reviews
English tackles tough questions about war … the question whether those who survived will ever cease to be haunted is left open.
After an incredible opening and a brutal account from WWII New Guinea, readers are kept guessing as to where they will go next in the islands of the Pacific. They are then spun sideways to Australia and to Japan to revisit the scene of wartime crimes. I found myself on a complex journey that I did not want to stop.
