Harry Garside, Australian Special Forces, leads a small reconnaissance team into the island of Java, occupied by the Japanese 16th Army. Out of the blue, the sudden end to the war brings upheaval. As the Japanese grip slackens local factions fight among themselves for power and also for hostages, seizing European women and children already held prisoner for three and a half years. Many foreigners are simply slaughtered. Still a closed island, none of these horrors are known to the outside world. Isolated in a remote but strategic rice bowl in the mountains, in his campaign of rescue Garside faces new and murderous enemies, but also makes unexpected friends . Basing it on historical events, James Macdonald has written a gripping evocation of the anarchy that was Java 45.