Book description
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. Duecks 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 friendsone Canadian and one Indonesianare
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 Waitner-Toews'
FEAR OF LANDING (1590583493, . 95) is set in the early 1 980s and tells
of a Canadian vet who is examining Indonesian cow health when sudden
deaths and the arrival of a mysterious young Chinese woman brings
murder. The deaths of cattle and people seem connected, and Dueck
becomes drawn into Indonesian politics and intrigue against his will in
this fast-paced riveting story mystery readers will find different and
intriguing. David Waltner-Toews is an epidemiologist, essayist, poet,
fiction writer, veterinarian, and a specialist in the epidemiology of
food and waterborne diseases, zoonoses (diseases other animals share
with people) and ecosystem health. A professor in the Department of
Population Medicine at the University of Guelph, he is the founding
president and CEO of Veterinarians without Borders/ Vétérinaires sans
Frontières - Canada, as well as the founding president of the Network
for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health. He has worked in many
countries, including Canada, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda,
Guatemala, and Peru. Besides being an author on nearly 100 peer-reviewed
scholarly papers, he has published half a dozen books of poetry, a
collection of poems and recipes, an award-winning collection of short
stories, and four books of non-fiction. He sometimes performs poetry in
a special dress and kerchief (The “Tante Tina” poems). He thinks he
might have lived long enough to have filched sufficient bits of wisdom
to start writing mystery novels.
