Black Sun, Red Moon

Japan's defeat looms… Kate dreams of rescue… Her lover prepares his last stand…'Exquisitely written…an exciting and exactingly brutal slice of history…' — BookLife by Publishers Weekly Prize in FictionKate van Dam is struggling to survive the squalor and deprivation of an internment camp. Faced with a sick mother, little food and medicines she accepts the dubious offer of 'hostess work' at Japanese officers' club.'An ambitious, unconventional, compelling saga of men at war, captivity, forced prostitution, murder, political dirty tricks and mob terror in Japanese-occupied and revolutionary Indonesia. Rory Marron's Black Sun, Red Moon: A Novel of Java gives us an almost tangible glimpse of the chaos that was Java in 1945-46. His writing, infused with imaginative speculation, is sweeping, poignant, passionate and unflinching.’ (Publisher’s Catalogue.)Japan's sudden surrender ends the Second World War but triggers the Indonesian declaration of independence from the Netherlands, catching the returning Dutch and 'Southeast Asia's peacekeepers', Britain, by surprise. In a chaotic, mistrustful peace Lord Mountbatten orders the Japanese to defend the white colonial order. Recent foes have no choice but to become allies—of a kind. In greatest peril are 80,000 European women and children interned by the Japanese. These defenceless civilians, abandoned and half-starved, some of them former sex slaves, become hostages to the future of a free Indonesia. As their former jailors become their guardians, protecting them from hostile mobs, hatreds and prejudices are hastily re-examined. British, Gurkha and Indian troops, veterans of the long Burma campaign arrive in Java expecting a warm welcome from grateful civilians and easy duties. Very soon their orders are rewritten, their mission and motives questioned, as they face determined, frequently suicidal opposition….Japan's surrender saves Lt Kenichi Ota from a suicidal last stand. But to save the woman he loves he will have to draw his sword once again.Highlander Alun MacDonald has had his fill of the British Army but finds himself facing a new, unpredictable foe and having to trust his former enemies with his life.Lamban longs for independence for Indonesia. A chance encounter with an activist plunges him into a teeming, dangerous world of secret societies, plots and the whirlwind of revolution.War Correspondent Meg Graham is expecting to cover Japan's defeat. Instead she is pitched into a ruthless struggle for an empire unrestrained by rules of war.