This is a first novel by this author, published in 2007.

The novel is set in and around Lake Taupo, NZ, and explores the shadows between two worlds — the living and the dead, past and present, Maori and Pakeha, and what might happen when some unthinking fool breaks a tapu.

When Billy Delaney (the unthinking fool) steals coins from a rock pool to buy a burger, he has no idea what he is about to unleash. But Billy has always been in trouble, and when his sister Saffron steps in to try and sort him out, trouble quickly overwhelms the Delaney family.

First Saffron’s niece suffers an horrific accident, leaving her balanced precariously between life and death. And then the Delaneys begin to die one by one. It’s left to a disbelieving Saffron helped by her unlikely ally Nick, a burnt-out war photographer to try to appease the wrath of long deceased Tama Ariki, (not Tama Iti you Kiwis), whose quest for utu echoes down the centuries.

For a first novel I found this very good although I think this writer may improve her writing in later novels, however it was the kind of story which kept me reading just to see what the heck was going to happen next. I really enjoyed it.