Before Raffles, before Rajah Brooke, there was Francis Light, the 18th-century trailblazer in the Malay Archipelago. Not only did Francis light establish the British settlement of Penang but his son, William Light, would found the city of Adelaide.
Based on historical fact, Operation Black Rose is the first in a series of books involving Gurkha military units that includes Operation Janus, Operation Blind Spot, Operation Stealth and Operation Four Rings. The author, JP Cross, a retired Gurkha colonel, draws on real characters and events he witnessed across various theatres of war.
Considered one of the world's most popular holiday destinations, the tropical island of Bali in Indonesia has long been the site for Western fantasies about paradise. Millions of tourists visit the Island of the Gods every year, from families treating the kids to a beach holiday to single men looking for cheap booze and sex. And for many young ......
My journey to a forgotten palace in Thailand's troubled Deep South
Forgotten in Thailand's troubled Deep South, on the border of Muslim Malaysia, stands a dilapidated wooden palace once home to a Malay ruler, the last of his dynasty.
Not many British schoolgirls have grown up to become revolutionary heroes of distant, eastern nations but Muriel Stewart Walker did just that. Under a multitude of different names - 'K'tut Tantri' and 'Surabaya Sue' being the best know - she joined in the struggle for Indonesian independence after the Second World War and broadcast its ......
Confessional of a Colonial Rubber Planter in 1950s Malaya
Through a collection of letters written to his best friend and to his father in England, and from his own personal diary entries, John Dodds memoir offers a fascinating, and amusing, glimpse of life as a colonial rubber planter. With true stories and confessions that would make even Somerset Maugham blush.
It is 1950. Singapore and the worst riots the island has ever seen have shut down the town for days, killing 18 people and wounding 173. Racial and religious tension has been simmering for months over the custody battle for wartime waif Maria Hertogh between her Malay Muslim foster mother and her Dutch-Catholic biological parents. Eurasian ......
On a hot August afternoon in 1811, an army of 10,000 British redcoats splashed ashore through the muddy shallows off Batavia (the former name of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital) to conquer the Dutch colony of Java. They would remain there for five turbulent years. Drawing on both British and Javanese archival sources, this entertaining and highly ......
Juggling her job, her family, her friends and worries about her future is keeping Singapore bookshop assistant Mei busy but when a customer is murdered, she needs to know why. Taking lessons from her favourite detectives, the always inquisitive Mei navigates the darker side of Singapore to find out what really led to the death of Sally Song.
