The Unknown Zone

Random House NZ, 2005. Foxing at page edges, slight wear at top of spine, otherwise good secondhand condition.

The Unknown Zone begins with the 1965 story of fifteen-year-old Hemi Ratana who, traumatised by a humiliating incident, climbs a giant kauri on the Coromandel Peninsula in a do-or-die test of courage. High in the head branches of the kauri, Hemi finds a human skeleton. Around its neck is a key on a chain. What does the key unlock? Nearly 160 years earlier, on the West Coast of the South Island, a group of sealers from Australia is taken captive by Ngai Tahu marauders. In a desperate bid for survival one of these captives joins up with another Maori group and they all journey to the eastern Coromandel. These two stories intertwine in a powerful, gripping and passionate tale of land rights, spirituality, coming-of-age and love.