New historical novel from the author of the Ockham-shortlisted 'Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant'.
The Burke and Hare 'anatomy murders' of 1828 terrify Edinburgh, until Burke is hanged and Hare disappears. Over a decade later, in the early days of New Zealand colonial settlement, a whaler washes up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson.
He calls himself Okiwi Brown, sets up a pub with a nasty reputation and finds himself a woman who had been abandoned on his beach. Nearby, children sing dark nursery rhymes of murder. One afternoon Okiwi' is visited by a pair of ex-soldiers, a bo'sun looking for a fight, and itinerant worker William Leckie with his young daughter Mary.
When a body is discovered on the beach, it could be that a drunken man has drowned. But it could be that the gathered witnesses know something more.
Cristina Sanders grew up in the family's Gateway Bookshop in Wellington and has been a keen reader ever since. An obsession with New Zealand colonial history and geography defines her novels. Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant was a finalist for the 2023 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and Displaced was shortlisted for the NZ Book Awards for Children after winning the Storylines Tessa Duder Award in 2020. Jerningham was shortlisted for the 2020 NZ Heritage Awards. Cristina lives in Hawke's Bay and is a volunteer crew member of the youth training ship Spirit of New Zealand, where the sailing and the sailors keep her well supplied with yarns.
Historical fiction
Paperback, 294 pages
H: 198mm W: 128mm Spine: 20mm