Author(s): Joan Druett

NZ Fiction

Wiki Coffin's ship, Swallow, has reached the Rio Negro, an area of remote Patagonia famous for its rough gauchos and desperate revolutionaries. An area where men have disappeared without a trace. As the resident linguist and captain's clerk on the US Exploring Expedition, Wiki is suddenly thrust into his other role as sheriff's deputy when a whaleman comes looking for his stolen schooner. Wiki takes up the hunt for the missing ship, but the trail leads to something much more sinister: a body with its skull picked clean by vultures, half-buried in a hill of salt. Investigating a murder under such circumstances is challenge enough, but then Wiki has to contend with the fact that the killer has set his sights on another target - the Expedition itself. First published 2007.