Author(s): Brent Leslie

Junior Fiction | NZ Children's Fiction | Historical Fiction

In a story based on fact, it is 1912 in the booming New Zealand gold mining town of Waihi. The mine at Martha Hill is the second largest gold mine in the world, yet two teenagers are struggling to keep their family from disaster. Their mother is recently dead under mysterious circumstances, their gold miner father is seriously ill and in trouble with the law, while an industrial conflict is looming that will tear the town apart. Fourteen year old Russell hopes to be a mining engineer, but is forced to leave school to work in the Martha Mine to help his family survive, and one miner –the violent father of the girl he likes, has it in for him. His seventeen year old sister, Irene, is acting as surrogate mother to the two younger children, but she is showing signs of beginning to crack under the stress. To make matters even worse, some people are saying that their father killed their mother. Their hopes of rescue lie mainly with their uncle, John Anderson, a brilliant gold mining engineer working temporarily for the Russian government in Siberia. But Anderson is unwittingly caught up in political intrigue – the discontent and violence that will lead to the Russian Revolution. He has been lucky to survive the sinking of the Titanic, but now the Czar’s dreaded secret police force, the Okhrana, is out to kill him. Will Anderson even make it back to New Zealand alive?