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Death of a Coast Watcher

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In 1943 on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, a Japanese officer beheads Hugh Rand, an Australian spy—a coast watcher. Spectators at the execution include villagers Rand terrorised as his mind frayed under the stress of pursuit by Japanese soldiers and their hounds. Rand’s influence transcends his death. For decades he plagues people 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 through cultural, historical and intellectual curtains, deep into minds disturbed by the Pacific War and Hugh Rand’s legacy.

Australian author Anthony English was formerly a university lecturer in international management and prior to that a civil servant and development project manager, working in Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Previous publications include journalism and academic articles, and his non-fiction book Tug of War: The Tension Concept and the Art of International Negotiation (2010) analyses international negotiation in hostage release, diplomacy, trade and business. Death of a Coast Watcher is his first long work of fiction.

* Literary fiction set in Australia, Japan, New Guinea and the Gilbert Islands. 
* The three main protagonists are Hugh Rand, an Australian spy in WWII New Guinea, Charlotte Millar, an Australian academic in 1970s Gilbert Islands, and Professor Hiroyuki Ayanokoji, a Japanese academic with a history to hide.
* Accessible on several levels: for readers looking for an exotic storyline with a good deal of suspense as well as those wanting to be taken down different routes to explore deeper themes.
* The novel will be submitted to literary awards in Australia and UK.

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