East Timor Crime

FBI Agent Sara Carter is mourning the fact that her father was killed trying to stop the abduction of her half-sister years before. It's the reason she became a police officer and the reason for her robust policing style. When that style becomes a problem for her resident agent in charge, she is forced to accept a secondment to Interpol in East Timor. There she is assigned to investigate the abduction of babies in the mountains along the country's southern border with Indonesia. Interpol has reason to believe an international racket is involved.

The murder of an American marine biologist on the remote island of Atauro, north of East Timor's capital of Dili, turns a tropical paradise into a hotbed of intrigue. FBI agent Sara Carter, on secondment to the local INTERPOL mission, is sent by her embassy to ensure the widow's speedy return to the US and her father-an influential senator-no matter what. Timorese police investigator Vincintino Cordero is assigned the case with instructions to keep Carter at bay and prove Timor's law enforcement system is thorough and effective in order to strengthen its case for continued US aid. Meanwhile Carter's translator, the young Timorese police officer Estefana dos Carvalho, is haunted by fears that the spirits of dead exiles her father was forced to bury on the island will extract their revenge on the children she expects her marriage to produce. Ignoring their instructions, Carter and Cordero join forces only to find that everyone has something to hide on Atauro and even the island's past is shrouded in mystery. and even the island's past is shrouded in mystery.

People are turning up dead for no apparent reason on the East Timor side of the border with Indonesia. Authorities believe a supply of toxic liquor smuggled into the country from West Timor is the reason. But traditional villagers fear a more sinister cause: a spirit that's taken possession of a living person in order to extract revenge for a past incident that occurred in defense of a sacred site. A suspicion of graft complicates matters and, if proved, could be tied to either explanation for the deaths. FBI agent Sara Carter, on assignment for INTERPOL in the border region of Balibo, is drawn into a tangled web where a small-time crook, a swindler, and people steeped in superstition combine to make a volatile cocktail of ambition and fear as deadly as the illicit liquor. The investigation will cost her friend Timorese police investigator Vincintino Cordero dearly, cause a re-evaluation of her own feelings about loss and love, and put Carter's own life in danger.