A powerful novel about Australia's frontier history, the story follows a successful trader and merchant in Sydney in the late 1870s. "Young James" Beckett believes he has put his past behind him, but when the enigmatic bushman Lancaster reappears in his life, he is forced to confront the haunting truth of his early years. In 1832, Young James and his father, the Captain, arrived in New South Wales and set out with a group of convicts and a guide, Lancaster, to claim property on the Morrombidgee River in Wiradjuri country. As land opened up for further settlement, more whites arrived and the delicate balance that was in place between the Beckett family and the Wiradjuri people was shattered. What happened next was so shocking that it has tormented Young James for life, and it is only his chance encounter with Lancaster decades later that provides the final clue to those terrible events. Based on Australia's first contact history, this is a gripping adventure about the desperate battle for land and its dreadful consequences.