1870 The Colony of New Zealand

On a visit to the rugged and sparsely populated Great Barrier Island, ageing Armed Constabulary Sergeant, Patrick Kelly, investigates a possible shipwreck, and comes across the survivors leaving the area in a stolen boat, after murdering the owner. Kelly recognises one of the would-be pirates as Lily Powell, a dangerous woman he had arrested some months earlier, who had recently escaped gaol. He wants her recaptured, but his superiors say she has escaped on the High Seas, and to forget about her.

Sergeant Kelly is later sent up to the remote northern gumfields to take over the stalled investigation of the murder of a gum dealer. Lily Powell unexpectedly appears and after a struggle is arrested. She is sent back to Auckland under heavy police guard, leaving Kelly on his own to continue the murder investigation.

When the murderer realises that the Sergeant is on his trail, he ambushes him. Can Kelly, alone and injured, survive until reinforcements arrive?

Terry Carson is a full-time writer and small publisher who lives in New Zealand. He spent most of his working life as a lawyer until he decided that there had to be a better life outside of the profession. So many of his former colleagues asked him how he managed to escape his former hectic and stressful legal life that he decided he had better write a book about how to do it. Terry has also written non-fiction books about the Family Court, old historic Courthouses, and New Zealand's most sensational early murder trial. His keen interest in his country's early colonial history has led to his first crime novel, An Unjust Death, which combines themes of early New Zealand colonial history and the law.