"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 ¿kiwi 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 ¿kiwi is visited by a pair of ex-soldiers, a bósun 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"--Back cover.