Eyes of God — Philip Babcock

The year is 1998. Set against a backdrop of financial collapse and pro-democracy revolution in the Pacific Rim, Eyes of God follows Harry Griffin, a naive idealist who has been lured to the oil fields of Indonesia by his mentor, Cliff Ramsey. He alights in Jakarta just as the nation descends into darkness. Riots, protests, and ethnic violence erupt in the streets of the capital. But a second crisis hits closer to home: Ramsey, the young man's brilliant mentor and surrogate father, has committed suicide. Devastated, the young man sets out for the rain forests of Pulau Hitam, the location of Ramsey's sensitive work on the largest steam flood project in the world. In a maelstrom of misinformation, he learns one true thing: Ramsey's project, so vital to competing factions of the government, is a fraud. Griffin knows little else until he discovers an electronic diary containing the old man's final words: "I have lost myself. I have forgotten who I was and why I bothered being myself. I am naught. I am nothing. I am X." The local police converge on him before he can make sense of it. Hunted by the police and the military, uncertain of everything in his life, he struggles to find the truth. He will encounter riots and death squads, matriarchal societies and murdered priests. He will be beaten and interrogated. And he will discover a kind of love. With his faith destroyed and every vanity shattered, he will make a final, daring escape. Eyes of God is both a tale of suspense that chronicles events in the fall of a dictatorship, and an exploration of suffering, loss, love, and raw human resilience.