A young lieutenant Abbott Bragg, dismissed from the King’s Indian army for an indiscretion with his commanding officer’s young temptress of a wife is transported to far off Van Diemen’s Land. Here he meets fellow prisoner, ‘French Frank’, a citizen of France also enjoying the hospitality of the King. Following a creative and daring escape the pair become bushrangers. A life of many adventures that includes a live-in relationship with a pair of amazing sisters in the colony’s finest house of ill repute.
Woven through the novel is a tempestuous story within a story about Nathina, a young Tasmanian Aboriginal woman who is taken to London and then returned to Van Diemen’s Land.
This is a rollicking tale of violence, sexual passion, love in many forms and brilliantly described action. It is populated with a rich cast of characters as might be expected in a remote outpost of empire where the severity of nineteenth century British justice is paramount and where almost everyone is escaping from something – whalers, drunkards, whores, innkeepers, ship captains, over-zealous commandants, incompetent governors and all the characters needed to spin a great yarn.