Carl’s family are farmers of the old school. His dad and uncle both fought in the Second World War and his traumatised father carries inner wounds from those days.

Carl serves his country too, in Vietnam, facing fear, and death, and the consequences of that terrible war. Now he’s facing his future – and it won’t be as a farmer.

His decision to join the army isn’t appreciated by all his family. His cousin, Helen, is a leading light in the peace movement. They’re poles apart on the issue – until they find themselves together in a remote hut up a South Island river valley. And then much further afield – in the Pacific aboard a nuclear protest yacht, with a French warship closing in.

A second powerful novel by the author of ‘Navigator’.