Sergeant Nick Chester has dodged the Geordie gangsters he once feared. He's out of hiding and looking forward to the quiet life. But gold fever is creating ill-feeling between prospectors, and a new threat lurks in the form of trigger-happy Americans preparing for Doomsday by building a bolthole in the Wakamarina valley. As tensions simmer in the Marlborough Sounds, Chester finds himself working on a bizarre cold-case murder and investigating a scandal-plagued religious sect. When local and international events reach fever pitch, Chester comes face to face with an evil that knows no borders.