Sergeant Frank Hardy, late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot; he's seen combat in India and the Crimea, and he's bored with life New Zealand now the wars are over. When he's asked to find two missing Scandinavian boys he accepts. Better than driving a coach back and forth through the perilous Manawatu Gorge, and playing rigged card games with clueless Armed Constables. When a young woman clutching a dead piglet runs in front of his horse on a track through the bush hostly pursued by a tomahawk-wielding Hauhau, he's hooked. She's a cousin of one of the boys and he's ready to give his life to keep her safe. But then he's attacked - more than once. And he starts to wonder if something from his past has come back to haunt him. Will he find the bodies? Will he survive? Only if he keeps his head.