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by David Waltner-Toews
On the islands of Java and Bali in the early 1980s, Western governments are pouring millions of dollars into development schemes even as Indonesian strongman President Suharto violently stifles dissent.
For Canadian veterinarian Abner Dueck, the "spice islands" are an exotic locale for the seemingly mundane work of examining dead cows and working with old friends. Dueck's life changes abruptly when some of the cows die under mysterious circumstances, and he meets a mysterious young Chinese woman; soon after, two of his friends - one Canadian and one Indonesian - are murdered.
Mennonite Dueck, marshalls the energy to battle Indonesian politics and the attempts of local businessmen, military rulers, and international "advisors" to manipulate development projects to their own ends.
And to unravel the mysterious deaths of both cattle and people, Dueck must first understand the long shadow that the 1966 massacres cast on Indonesian life, as well as the complexities of their music, and the demands and intrigues of love and conspiracy, death and mystery, and of course, cultural heritage and personal identity.
David Waltner-Toews is a genuine polymath...In his free time, he's written his first mystery novel, and it's terrific ... As a poet, Waltner-Toews has a lovely ear for language and description. As a vet, he takes us into the centre of a cow's carcass, and his grasp of politics and recent Indonesian history is clear and readable....a very fine debut. - Globe & Mail (Canada).
"Readers will be surprised to find descriptions of animal autopsies as intriguing as political schemes in this powerful and highly original portrait of a particular time and place. - Publishers Weekly.
This information about Fear of Landing was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
David Waltner-Toews is a specialist in the epidemiology of food and waterborne diseases, zoonoses (diseases other animals share with people) and ecosystem health. He is a professor in the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph and has worked in many countries, including Canada, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, Guatemala, and Peru.
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