There was an old man who lived on the edge of the world and he had a horse called Sydney Bridge Upside Down. He was a scar-faced old man and his horse was a slow-moving bag of bones, and I start with this man and his horse because they were there for all the terrible happenings up the coast that summer, always somewhere around.' The 'terrible happenings' take place in Calliope Bay, a forbidden and dangerous place. It's a place where Harry Baird finds himself drawn, a place where accidents happen. A place where people die.'