Lowell tries not to think about the past, about
the hijacking that killed his mother.
Samantha, on the other hand, cannot let the past
go. As a child she survived the hijacking of Air France 064, and
as an adult she obsessively digs for answers. Specifically, she
wants to find a shadowy figure called Salamander, a man she believes
was a key player in the unravelling of the tragedy.
It is the death of Lowell's father, and his legacy
of a blue sports bag crammed with documents and videotapes, that
finally brings Lowell and Samantha together and reveals the interconnections
between victims and perpetrators, saved and damned.
But in this murky world of endless ailiases and
surveillance, who can be trusted? When does the quest for truth
become a dangerous obsession? And what difference can the truth
make?
EXCERPT
(AMAZON)
Winner of the 2003 Queensland Premier's Award
for the Best Fiction Book.
Shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.
"Janette Turner Hospital either has a
remarkable knack for timing or she keeps her ear so close to the
ground she reads the seismic tremors of world events through her
fiction before they have finished their full course... this novel
is essentially a literary political thriller with no shortage of
the paranoiac conspiracy theorising that underlies not only American
social thinking these days but its foreign policy as well. It is
a densely layered tale of international terrorism, political intrigue
and deceit in the model of John Le Carre although perhaps more claustrophobic
in its intensity."
— Sydney Morning Herald
"A race through the inner precincts of terror
and espionage, Due Preparations for the Plague is harrowing
and intense, but ultimately redemptive. Tom Clancy could learn a
thing or two"
— Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
"The Australian Margaret Atwood ... a dark
and fatalistic book."
— The Guardian
FURTHER
REVIEWS
INTERVIEW WITH JTH
PURCHASE THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON: Canada
| France
| UK
| US
Australian readers: visit the Harper
Collins booksellers page
PUBLICATION HISTORY |
Australia |
Fourth
Estate/Harper Collins, 2003 |
Canada |
Fourth
Estate/ Harper Collins, 2003 |
UK |
Fourth
Estate/ Harper Collins, 2004 |
USA |
W.W.
Norton, 2003 |
IN TRANSLATION |
France |
Dernieres
Recommandations Avant La Peste, trans. Virginie Buhl
Paris: Editions
Rivages, 2004 |
Netherlands |
De
Feniks Club, trans. Thijs Voskuilen
Amsterdam: Ambo|Anthos,
Literaire
Thrillers, 2004 |
Spain |
PREPARATIVOS
PARA LA PLAGA, trans. Isabel Murillo
Madrid: Alfaguara,
2004 |
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