Canberra bomb toll 'horrific' - Amongst those believed killed were the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia, the Indonesian Chief of Army Staff, the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs and...
Tension between Australia and Indonesia, the world's largest Moslem nation, brings the two countries to the brink of war. East Timor's sovereignty and rich oil fields shared by the two neighbouring countries become key elements in one man's ambitions. General Nathan Seda, a powerful Indonesian Officer, has a dangerous plan in which he enmeshes Stephen Coleman, a career Intelligence Officer with the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
'The Timor Man', an absorbing thriller, provides a controversial perspective on events in Indonesia from the abortive coup d'etat of 1965 to the present day.
My copy was called The Tim-Tim man. What is now Timor-Leste was called, when it was occupied by the Indonesians, Timor Timur (east Timor), which was commonly abbreviated as Tim-Tim.
I read it when I lived in Jakarta many years ago, and again just now (at home in Canberra). Written by a man who knows the diplomatic circuit better than I. I was pleased that I still remembered enough Bahasa Indonesia that I didn’t need any help from the glossary.
The plot is a bit contrived, but that only becomes really obvious toward the end of the book. Light reading.