This superb coming-of-age novel contains echoes of Ian Cross's The God Boy. Both novels look at the world and family relationships through the eyes of a young boy on the brink of adolescence. Davey Ardsley is twelve years old, growing up in a working-class suburb of Christchurch in the early 1970s (Norman Kirk has just died) with a big, violent, hard-case father and a long-suffering mother. The fridge is always full of beer; his mother is always lighting another fag to have with her cup of tea. Davey is a bit of a hard-case himself, giving his father and Terry Appleby, the local thug, plenty of lip. One day Davey witnesses something he shouldn't have and the repercussions that follow pitch the Ardsleys down a dark and tragic road. The outcome is that Davey has to choose between loyalty to his father or telling the truth.

Jesse and Aaron are brothers in their twenties, living on the family farm. It's not remote back-blocks, but it's still heartland rural. Jesse is a troubled, difficult, sometimes violent lad, always messing up and embarrassing his parents. Aaron's more sensible. He's marrying Carly in the local church, and they're planning their honeymoon in Fiji.One day out duck shooting the boys accidentally bring down an albatross. It's badly wounded, and the dilemma of what to do with the injured bird – and the consequences – becomes the central feature of the novel. As the reader we know all about The Ancient Mariner and the sailors' curse, but the boys don't seem to and it's never referred to.