Anthony Stovold
The Dry Well
When retired Englishman Peter Rawlins agrees to help an old acquaintance investigate a forgotten wartime file, he expects little more than stories about Yamashita gold and Japanese occupation myths buried deep in the hills of Bohol.
Instead, he uncovers something far more dangerous.
What begins with an abandoned pre-war tunnel near Jagna slowly exposes a hidden network of wartime land transfers, vanished families, political alliances and mineral surveys stretching back to the final years of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. As foreign investors descend on the province chasing rare earth deposits worth billions, old Manila families, government officials and corporate interests become increasingly desperate to keep the past buried.…