Mary Elizabeth Taylor

The final days of 1949. The Dutch East Indies – the fabulous “emerald belt” – is slipping away from its colonial rulers. But the renegade Turk Westerling and his private army still threaten Indonesia’s hard-won independence. Maggie Featherstone-Smith accompanies her husband, a member of the UN peace commission, to Java, not realizing she is about to become embroiled in a murder with potentially far-reaching consequences.

In the background of this novel is the wayang – the traditional Javanese puppet theatre, depicting the stories of gods and mortals, and the struggle between good and evil. Are the characters in Maggie’s world similarly fated to play out their roles? And who is the dalang – the puppet master of this play?

Mary Elizabeth Taylor, who made the same journey to Indonesia herself, weaves historical fact and ingenious fiction into a good old-fashioned whodunit.